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CHRISTIAN MORALST"^ \ 



BY THE j 

REV. WILLIAM SEWELL, M.A. 

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF EXETER COLLEGE, 

AND 

PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 




TBIRB BXUT1CN 



LONDON : 
JAMES BURNS, 17 PORTMAN STREET, 

POETMAN SQUAKE. 
MDCCGXLII. 



V 



I G an not permit this little book to be put 
forth, without acknowledging, what is no excuse 
to the writer, but may be a warning to the rea- 
ders, that, from the pressure of unforeseen cir- 
cumstances, it has been necessary both to write 
and publish it hastily. It was commenced with 
a wish to make it popular, like the other vo- 
lumes of this series ; but popular Ethics are al- 
ready provided for us in our Catechisms and 
Bibles ; and it was soon found impossible to 
treat the subject scientifically, without entering 
into abstruse questions. It is therefore designed 
principally for students, who may be capable of 
deeper researches than mere questions of com- 
mon casuistry. 

My object has been mainly to restore the 
connexion so long dissevered between the sci- 
ence of Ethics and the Catholic Christianity of 



VI PREFACE. 

the Church ; and to touch chiefly on those ques- 
tions which are most prominently discussed in 
the present day. Perhaps it may not be use- 
less to state in a tabular form, as an outline of 
the contents, the chief principles which are sug- 
gested. 

1. That Ethics are the science of education. 

2. That books and writing, without oral in- 
structors, are a very imperfect mode of teaching. 

3. That external historical testimony of 
God's revealed will is the only true basis of 
moral science. 

4. That the Catholic Church only has the 
right or the power to educate. 

5. That the science of Ethics and Chris- 
tianity are necessarily connected, and yet must 
be kept distinct. 

6. That certain rules are to be observed in 
the study of Ethics, so as to avoid three great 
errors in the present day, namely, Rationalism, 
Syncretism, and Eclecticism. 

7. That in education forms are of the greatest 
importance. 

8. That the Sacraments of the Church, 
especially the Sacrament of Baptism, cannot be 
separated from ethical education. 



PREFACE. Vll 

9. That there is in the world a real personal 
Evil agent, to be overcome by those who would 
be good. 

10. That all goodness and virtue consists in 
obedience to external law ; and the goodness of 
the Christian in obedience to the law of Christ. 

1 1 . That it is a struggle against temptation. 

12. That the struggle of a baptised Chris- 
tian is different from that of a heathen. The 
one must strive to retain a blessing already given ; 
the other to obtain what is as yet withheld. 

13. That our real goodness is the Spirit of 
God, communicated to us at Baptism. 

14. That the quality to which we give the 
name of good, is that which produces unity in 
plurality. 

15. That the proof of our possessing this 
good, is our power of resisting our own incli- 
nation. 

16. That our duties depend on our relations 
to persons, and ultimately on our relations to 
God. 

17. That this relation is a Covenant. 

18. That we are dealt with as free agents. 

19. That the knowledge of God contained 
in a creed is the first foundation of all goodness. 



Till PBEFACE. 



20. That the will of God is our only law. 

21. That the confirmation and preservation 
of the privileges conveyed to us at Baptism is to 
be the great object of our lives 

22. And that happiness is not pleasure, but 
something prior and superior to pleasure. 

It is unnecessary to specify many other ethi- 
cal questions which occur incidentally. 

I would pray to Almighty God, that he would 
be pleased, in His mercy, not to be offended at 
such an offering in behalf of His truth and His 
Church, from a most unworthy minister of it. 
And next to this, it is my humble desire that it 
may be received by the University of Oxford as 
a grateful though mean acknowledgment of in- 
estimable benefits derived from her sound disci- 
pline, her wise teaching, and her blessed insti- 
tutions ; which may it please God even now to 
preserve among us, as a light in a darkened age, 
and a safeguard to His Church in this land, and 
throughout the earth ! 



CHRISTIAN MORALS. 



If you had lived fifteen hundred years ago, though 
what I am about to say to you would have been 
taught you from a child, it would probably not have 
come to you in the shape of a little book. There 
was a time when Christian men did not trust to 
books to inculcate Christian truths. And why this 
was, you may understand, if you consider how you 
will deal with me, who now wish to talk to you in 
the person of a little book. You have taken me up, 
have you not, in order to amuse yourself? You have 
seated yourself in a chair — made yourself very com- 
fortable — propose, if you like me, to read me, just 
as long as is convenient and pleasant ; and to throw 
me aside when you are tired. Whenever I become 
grave and uninteresting, you will cease to listen. 
You will skip this passage and that ; turn over three 
or four pages, till your eye catches capital letters, 
which seem to indicate a story ; exclaim against me 
when I am dull ; pronounce me wrong, if I say what 
you do not agree with ; call me dark and obscure, if 
you fail to understand me at first sight ; criticise and 



X BOOKS ALONE NOT INSTBUCTOES. 

judge me, in all things, instead of docilely submitting 
to be guided by me and overruled. And if I happen 
to coincide with yourself, you will go away nattered 
and confirmed in your opinion of your own wisdom. 
And, in the meantime, I am powerless in your hands. 
I cannot rebuke you for your levity ; nor rouse you 
to attention; nor explain my own meaning, when 
you mistake it ; nor chastise you for indolence and 
carelessness ; nor reduce you to humility, by shew- 
ing your own ignorance ; nor compel you to study 
me ; nor encourage you to think afterwards on what 
I say ; nor save you from perverting my words to 
your own injury ; nor abide with you in your hands, 
ready to admonish you at all times ; nor make you 
feel shame, or gratitude, or affection to me, by which 
you would act up to my lessons. And the words 
which I utter are all ambiguous all of them may 
be made by any ingenious reader to take one mean- 
ing or another, according to his own disposition. 
What I say in the beginning will require to be ba- 
lanced and qualified by something that occurs at the 
end — sentence with sentence, rule with rule, prin- 
ciple with principle. But whether you do this or 
not, will depend on your own industry, and honesty, 
and knowledge, and talent. If you fail in any one 
of these — if you are either lazy, or partial, or igno- 
rant, or stupid (and what young man is not liable 
to one or more of these faults ?), you will certainly 
err. If you act upon your error, you will fall into 
mischief. If, what is not less likely, you do not act 
at all, but forget what you read the moment it has 
passed from your eye, and make it all a dream, then 
you will fall into a still worse evil ; for you will have 
lost an opportunity of doing right, and have made 
your conscience more insensible to warnings, and 
learnt to practise contempt for your teachers, and to 
look on questions of right and wrong, virtue and 



CH. I.] BOOKS ALONE NOT 1NSTBUCTOBS. 3 

vice, as things to be talked of and argued about, 
not for practice and self-denial ; and your condem- 
nation will be more certain, and your punishment 
more severe, because the knowledge will have been 
placed before your eyes, and you will have failed to 
profit by it. 

These are some of the reasons, and there are 
many others, why wise men of old — wiser men than 
you or any of us in the nineteenth century — would 
have opened their eyes with as much contempt as 
holy men can feel towards ignorant fellow-creatures, 
if any one had proposed to make you a good Chris- 
tian, or a good citizen, by means of a book. 

And yet, I suspect you will say, they certainly 
would have wished — would they not ? — to make me 
both wise and good. At least, the better that men 
are around me, the more anxious they seem to be 
that others should be good likewise. And if books 
were of no use, what could they have had ? 

Now here is an instance of the evil which I men- 
tioned above. You have, I suspect, mistaken my 
meaning. You are on the point either of throwing 
me down in ridicule ; or at least you will declare to 
your father or mother, or some one who asks you 
what you have been reading, that I have been 
gravely telling you that books are of no use to 
make men good. Now, if you will look back, you 
will find that I said no such thing. I said that wise 
men in former days would not have thought to make 
you good by means of a book ; but I did not say 
that books were not useful to make men good. 
When you have to take medicine, the medicine must 
be brought in a glass. When you mount your horse, 
you will look out for the bridle. And the glass is 
very useful in curing you, and the bridle in enabling 
you to ride ; and yet I think it is not the glass 
which cures you, nor the bridle which makes the 



4 BOOKS ALONE NOT INSTRUCTORS. 

horse go. And so books may be of great service in 
making you good, and all the time not be the thing 
which makes you good at all. This is a problem, 
is it not ? And now, if you are clever and active- 
minded, you will put me down for a little time, and 
think how this can be. If you are indolent, and 
good for little, you will pass on, and think it no 
matter whether you understand it or not. And if 
you possess a faculty not very common, but very 
characteristic of superior minds, you will say to 
yourself, " Now here is a seeming contradiction, a 
sort of mystery, which I cannot explain, and which 
yet is gravely asserted by a printed book, which is 
probably written and printed by a person wiser than 
myself; and, as far as I can see, I cannot contra- 
dict it. Probably, therefore, it is true ; and pro- 
bably, also, there may be many more problems or 
mysteries of the same kind, which may also be true 
in their way, though I cannot understand them 
either." Now, if you will do this, lay down the 
book, take a turn about the room, and try to recol- 
lect and comprehend what I have said, by finding- 
out other instances, where things are useful in ac- 
complishing ends, which nevertheless they do not 
accomplish at all, — you will have taken perhaps the 
first step to become a wise and energetic man ; and 
I will tell you afterwards what, fifteen hundred years 
ago, great and good men would have done to make 
you great and good as themselves. 



CH. II.] NECESSITY OF TESTIMONY. 



CHAPTER II. 

The first thing, then, which great and good men, 
many ages back would have done to make you like 
themselves, would have been this : they would have 
gone, when you were an infant, to your cradle, or 
even before you were strong enough to lie in a cradle, 
while your eyes were scarcely open, and your little 
tiny fingers were moving faintly about, as if to find 
out where you were ; and, hour after hour, you were 
sleeping without sense on your mother's breast, or 
wearying her with little cries, which neither you 
could explain, nor she understand — these great 
and good men, I say, would have come to find you, 
and would have bade your mother and your father 
bring you, as a foul, polluted, accursed thing, against 
which God was wroth, and over which the spirits of 
evil were permitted to have dominion, to a place 
which they would appoint. And your parents would 
undoubtedly have obeyed. With all their love and 
pity for you, though they might willingly have died 
to do you good, they would still have confessed that 
you were thus polluted, and accursed, and a prey to 
evil spirits, and that by themselves they were pow- 
erless to rescue you from this state of misery and 
shame. Now is not this a mystery, a strange thing, 
which you cannot understand ? You did not make 
yourself — you had no choice in your parents, no 
power to do a single act ; you lay there feeble, igno- 
rant, half blind, half deaf, at the mercy of others ; 
never having heard of God, never having disobeyed 
his voice, unstained by any offence to man, and the 
b 2 



b NECESSITY OF TESTIMONY. 

object of tenderest love and compassion to all about 
yon. Your mother would hang over you hour by 
hour, her eyes rilled with tears at the joy now fol- 
lowing her great anguish ; clasping you to her 
breast as her precious treasure ; thinking nothing of 
cold, or pain, or watching, or hunger, while you 
could be satisfied. Your father would leave his 
work or his business to come and watch over your 
cradle. Your little brothers would gather round to 
look at you while you were sleeping, and disturb 
you by trying to kiss you, that they might shew 
their affection. Neighbours, and even strangers, 
would interest themselves about you, visit you, talk 
of you, and, if death had come upon you then, would 
have mourned for you. And if you were the first- 
born — born to great riches or rank — your entrance 
into the world would be announced to it as an event 
in which many hearts were called on to rejoice. 
The rich would be invited to congratulate — the 
poor would be fed — the house gladdened — every 
thing would be full of exultation, and gratitude, and 
hope, because you were born into the world — you, 
who all the time were lying in helpless ignorance, 
not merely helpless and ignorant, but, as wise and 
holy men would declare, under the wrath and curse 
of God! Would not this be a mysterious tale to 
tell a stranger? 

Now I do not ask you yet to consider if there are 
not more mysteries of this same kind — more cases 
within your own experience, where men, and boys, 
and children, may be objects of aversion and anger 
to others, without being aware of it themselves, or 
having done any thing to deserve it by their own 
will and deed — more cases were common people 
may be rejoicing in hope and triumph over beings 
who ought really to be pitied. When you become 
older, you will learn that to look first to your own 



CH. II.] NECESSITY OF TESTIMONY. 7 

experience, to your own understanding, or to your 
own notions of right and wrong, is not the wisest or 
safest way of solving mysteries. Let us rather think, 
who are these persons who would have come, as I 
described, to your cradle, given this account of your 
condition, and bade your father and mother do as 
they commanded, to save you from it. Are they 
persons whom you ought to trust — whom it would 
be great presumption and mere folly for you to 
despise ? 

In the first place, who are you that you should 
despise any one ? You are not wise, otherwise you 
would not require instruction ; nor strong, for you 
cannot preserve your life without assistance ; nor 
experienced, for the world is immeasurable, and 
time infinite, and of these you see but a part — and 
think how small a part! All that you are quite 
sure of is the present moment ; just as if you were 
imprisoned in a dungeon, and only one little eyelet- 
hole could be discovered in the roof, over which 
some hand without were drawing a long infinite 
series of objects, and only one to be seen at a time. 
Of the future you know nothing ; it is all dark. 
You walk on ; but beyond the ground on which you 
fix your foot, you cannot see a step. You guess, 
hope, fear, imagine, anticipate ; and very often hopes, 
and fears, and anticipations come true ; but they 
are but guesses after all, and guesses are not know- 
ledge. And so, too, of the past. Upwards of five 
thousand years have passed since man was created. 
Millions of men have been scattered over the face 
of the earth, have seen sights, and done deeds, and 
collected observations, of which how little do you 
know ! How far have you journeyed from your 
own home ? What countries and nations have you 
seen ? What have you read from those innumer- 
able volumes in which the learning of men lies 



8 NECESSITY OF FAITH IN TESTIMONY. 

buried as in a catacomb ? And if you thus know 
nothing of the earth, how much less have you seen 
of heaven — of those illimitable regions, sown with 
myriads of stars, each star a world — each leading 
the eye beyond it into immeasurable depths of space 
— each subject to laws, performing works, obeying 
the will of its Creator ; but whose laws, and works, 
and obedient movements, no human eye has yet 
done more than guess at? 

I say, then, that you are not in a capacity to 
despise any one — to deny any fact which you may 
receive from the testimony of others, unless it is 
refuted by other and superior testimony. You can- 
not say what may, or may not, be. All that you 
know beyond the thought of the moment, you must 
take upon trust from others. You must live upon 
their contributions ; trade with their capital ; build 
on their foundations ; follow in their footsteps ; — or 
you must perish. In one word, your whole exist- 
ence depends on the belief of testimony. 

Now, as all that I — this little book, which you 
hold in your hand — intend to say to you, is built 
on this fact, lay me down for a moment, and consi- 
der if it is not so. And I will just suggest to you 
some simple obvious heads, under which to make 
the trial. 

First, then, consider what takes place whenever 
you eat or drink ; and eat and drink you must often, 
or you will certainly die. Now what do you know 
of your food? You have never seen it prepared; 
you see little of its contents, still less of its effect 
upon your frame. You take it on the testimony of 
those who serve it up to you — of the servant, the 
cook, the baker, the confectioner, the butcher, the 
grocer, the vintner, of every one who has been en- 
gaged in preparing it, or any part of it ; and each 
of whom had it in his power to insert poison, or to 



CH. II.] NECESSITY OF FAITH TN TESTIMONY. 9 

omit something which renders it nutritious. And 
yet you believe what they tell you, without asking ; 
and if you refuse to believe them, you cannot eat 
at all. And what is to become of you ? 

You talk with your companion, with your mas- 
ter, your parent, your servant. Now all that you 
hear are certain sounds issuing from his mouth, and 
you see certain movements of the face ; and from 
these two together you conjecture what is passing 
in his mind — in that mind which you never saw, 
and never can see in this life ; but without knowing 
the movement of which, you may as well live with 
an automaton or a stone statue. And we all know 
how easy it is to feign words and dress up the 
countenance ; and every one about you, who speaks 
to you, may have a real interest in deceiving you. 
Some of them may have great powers of deceit, and 
take delight in it. Not one in a thousand either 
could, or would unveil to you the whole state of his 
heart and mind. And yet if you distrust them, if 
you will not believe that they speak truth, how will 
you live with them? You cannot converse with 
them, nor be instructed by them, nor learn their 
character, nor love, nor please, nor guard against, 
nor influence them, nor establish any communica- 
tion whatever with them, unless you take their tes- 
timony to what is passing within them. And with- 
out such communication daily and hourly, I ask 
again, what is to become of you ? 

Take another instance. How much of your life 
must depend on acting upon general rules ! that is, 
on a knowledge, not only of individual facts, as 
that, on taking this drug, death has followed — on 
following this path, a man has fallen into a pit, — 
but rather of the universal principles wrought out 
by experiment and induction, that such drugs always 
will produce death, that such and such paths always 



10 NECESSITY OF FAITH IN TESTIMONY. 

do terminate in pitfalls. Every action in life, which 
proceeds from the higher exercise of reason, must 
start with general principles of this kind. But 
where are you to get them, if testimony is not to 
be admitted ? How many are deduced from expe- 
riments, which have been, and will be again, fatal 
to the experimenters ? how many from observations 
within the reach of a few only! how many from 
facts which are past, and may never return again ! 
Will you throw them aside — commence forming a 
new stock for yourself — hazard every thing in the 
act of forming them — and, after all, receive them 
upon human testimony, the testimony of your own 
senses, instead of the combined senses of many 
others ? 

These are but a few of the cases in which testi- 
mony is all in all. Of the past, of the distant, of 
every thing beyond the range of your own eye and 
ear — even then, of the certainty and correctness of 
your own perception, — of all universal truths, of 
all more recondite experiences, which have not hap- 
pened to fall within your own narrow field of in- 
quiry, of the heart and mind of man, and of all that 
passes within it ; in other words, of all that is invi- 
sible (and how much of our existence, even in this 
world of sense, depends on things invisible ?) ; of all 
this, without testimony, you can know nothing. 

And therefore I say to you, that when good 
and wise men — when any men come forward, and 
assert any thing, however strange and mysterious, the 
first thought should be, not to reject the testimony, 
because the fact is strange, but to incline to admit 
the fact, because testimony is the natural channel 
for conveying such strange knowledge to man. 

What, then, you will ask, am I to be credulous, 
superstitious, a listener to old wives' fables ? Am I 
to have no discernment, no judgment of my own ? 



CH. II.] FAITH NOT DANGEROUS. 11 

I answer, that you ought to be credulous — a 
listener to every thing — to exercise no judgment 
of your own in opposition to accredited testimony. 
Do not begin with doubting, but begin with be- 
lieving. Belief is natural, doubt is not ; belief is a 
virtue, doubt is a sin. Why is it you fear to be- 
lieve ? because some evil may follow ? Consider, for 
a moment, even in the worst instances, if believ- 
ing the word of others is thus dangerous. Grant 
that we should put trust in every thing, what evil 
would follow ? Of all that range of knowledge which 
is merely speculative, and involves no practical risk 
— as of geography, history, natural science, geo- 
metry, astronomy, — it is little man's interest to de- 
ceive ; his discoveries are nothing, unless supported 
by learning and reasoning ; they are open to correc- 
tion at each point, and must be corrected step by 
step, exactly in proportion as they are brought into 
action. You read Bruce' s Travels. They sound 
strange ; but what harm arises from believing them 
to be true, even though indeed they were false? 
And what good proceeds from doubting? For it 
is better to have the mind filled with innocent fairy 
tales, and visions of the fancy, than to keep it 
empty, and cold, and lonely, without an occupant. 

And as for facts which lead to action, how 
rarely are men interested in deceiving you ! A 
robber may wish to entrap you to a solitary spot 
by some false tale ; a beggar may delude you by 
a fiction of distress. But these cases are not the 
ordinary dealings of men, and carry with them their 
own safeguard. For the most part, men are more 
disposed to warn you against evil by their testi- 
mony, than to delude you into it. They are alarm- 
ists ; they like to exaggerate ; they are fond of 
exciting wonder, and sympathy, and emotion ; of 
spreading terror, of exercising power in deterring 



12 god's witnesses. 

you from action, of leading you away with them- 
selves from possible mischief, rather than of drawing 
you on to share in a doubtful good. And when 
they do attempt to deceive, how hard they find it 
not to betray themselves by inconsistencies ! 

Now these are provisions of nature , or, rather, 
never say nature, but of Almighty God, the Lord and 
Master of nature ; these are his provisions for guard- 
ing you from hurt, when you obey his will, and put 
your trust in the words of men. But he has made 
a -still better provision. He takes care that from 
your earliest childhood, you should have standing 
by your side his own appointed witnesses — wit- 
nesses of truth and good ; not indeed infallible, but 
least of human beings likely to err or to mislead 
you ; so that your ears may be preoccupied by them, 
and every suggestion of evil, however mighty the 
testimony to it, may be met by a previous testimony 
still mightier against it. God has given you Parents, 
whose interest, as well as duty, is to secure you from 
harm — whose authority is founded on a commission 
from Him, by whose law man does not spring out 
of the earth, but is moulded at the breast of his 
mother — whose knowledge is rarely their own in- 
vention, but the common treasure of approved hu- 
man wisdom. He has given you, moreover, Society, 
— Society, with its governors and laws; its gover- 
nors, like parents, commissioned from heaven ; its 
laws having their root in the revealed will of God ; 
and both, even from the instinct of self-preservation, 
compelled to wish that you should do what is good, 
and obtain what will make ' you happy. At any 
rate, they are both of them ministers and repre- 
sentatives of God. They are not formed by man. 
They derive their power by delegation from heaven ; 
and as such they claim your obedience. If they 
speak what God has put into their mouths, you can- 



CH, II.] god's first two witnesses. 13 

not err in following them ; if they speak for their 
own profit, yet obey them, as set over you by God, 
until you have from God some positive command to 
the contrary brought to you by ministers more for- 
mally accredited, with superior powers ; and he ivill 
bear you safe from harm. For this is the real ques- 
tion for your consideration : Are these witnesses, 
whose voice I am called on to obey, sent by another, 
or do they come of themselves ? Are they ap- 
pointed, instituted, regularly commissioned to deli- 
ver a message from Gocl, or are they self-taught, 
and mere human agents ? Ask this of your parents ; 
ask it of your king and civil governors ; ask it, 
above all, of those who come to you with especial 
warnings and spiritual communications. Did you 
appoint them ? Did they appoint themselves ? Do 
they date their authority from man? If so, you 
must follow them at your own risk. In obedience 
there is no virtue, for you are not obeying God. 
There is even sin, for you cannot follow two mas- 
ters ; and in following those whom God has not 
sent, you must be deserting those whom He has 
sent. And if they lead you by accident in the way 
which He would choose, there is no reward; for 
you are not thinking of God, but of man : and if, 
as they are sure to do, they lead you from the path 
into evil, there is no excuse ; for the evil has been 
of your own choosing. 

Let me give you, then, in conclusion, for the 
present, these few short maxims : — 

1. In all things act by testimony. 

2. In all things take that testimony which is 
appointed for you by God ; which is given to you 
by persons set over you by His hand. 

3. Never depart from this, unless you have the 
clearest and most indisputable dispensation, con- 



14 god's first two witnesses. 

veyed to you by an authority also set over you by 
God, but appointed as superior to them. 

Or, in still fewer words, 

Believe in and obey your parents. Believe in 
and obey your king ; and never dispute their voice, 
except you are commanded by — whom ? 

I will tell you this in another chapter. 



CH. III.] THE THIRD WITNESS OF GOD. 15 



CHAPTER III. 

It is not unlikely that you think I am wandering 
from the subject. I began by saying, that in former 
times good men would have little thought of making 
you good by means of a book — a book on Ethics ; 
and I was about to tell you how they would have 
attempted to make you good, when the very first 
part of their proposal seemed to involve a strange 
mystery which startled us ; and I was obliged to go 
over a part, but only a part, of the many considera- 
tions which might fairly induce a man to listen to 
them submissively, and to put confidence in their 
words. For the men of whom I spoke, as coming 
to your cradle, if you had been born 1500 years 
ago, are not mere imaginary persons, who lived, and 
died, and passed away from the earth, leaving no- 
thing but their names and their ashes behind them. 
They are persons with whom, even at this dis- 
tance of time, you, who perhaps never heard before 
of them, or saw them, have a very close connexion. 
They were no relations to your family, yet are very 
near relations of yourself. They had no money, 
and never knew that such a being as you would be 
born ; and yet they laboured to preserve, and suc- 
ceeded in transmitting for you, a greater inheritance 
than any earthly monarch ever accumulated for his 
son. Many more strange facts might be stated of 
them ; not the least, that it is their testimony to 
which, in the present day, we must look back 
through the long mist of years, whenever we want 
to know what is good and evil — what will make us 



16 MINISTERS OF RELIGION. 

happy — how we should try to become, what we all 
wish to become, perfect instead of imperfect, strong 
instead of weak, pure instead of impure, wise instead 
of fools. 

These men are also the persons to whom you 
must look, by whose testimony you must abide, if 
ever your parent or your king, the appointed mes- 
sengers of God, seem to betray their trust, and speak 
words which you ought not to obey. 

Now all this is liable to much misinterpretation ; 
and there are not a few persons in the world who 
would put on, when they read it, a very grave face, 
and use very hard words, as if a little book contain- 
ing such notions could only lead you into mischief. 
But let us consider together how the case really 
stands ; and when any person of any kind comes to 
you seriously with any statement whatever, never 
turn away in contempt without examining it, unless 
it be contradictory, positively contradictory, to some- 
thing which you have been told before, and by better 
testimony. If it be not contradictory, it may be 
something which may be true, and which you may 
hold together with what you know already; and 
then, in rejecting it, you would lose an opportunity 
of gaining an accession to your knowledge, and of 
possessing two facts or principles instead of only one. 

Now look round first in the place where you are 
living. Besides your parents, who are constantly 
telling you what to do and what not to do — and 
besides certain magistrates and civil officers, who, if 
you disobeyed the laws of the land, would proceed 
to punish you, and who, therefore, stand to you as 
witnesses of good and evil — besides these, who both 
have been placed over you by God, parents through 
the arrangements of nature, magistrates through the 
appointment of that supreme power in the state, the 
King, who is ordained of God — besides these, there 



CH. III.] MINISTERS OF RELIGION. 17 

are certain other persons, — I should fear there would 
be more than o?ie, — who call themselves ministers of 
God. They profess that God has sent them with an 
especial message in their hands — a message (they 
would say) not invented by themselves — containing 
promises and threatenings, which, as men, they can 
have no power to enforce , and advice, which, if it 
comes from them as men, is little better to be regarded 
than the words of any ordinary fellow-mortal. All 
this message, and these promises and threatenings, 
this advice, thus proffered to you, turns precisely on 
the same subject on which I am now speaking to 
you — they turn on Christian Morals. They profess 
to tell you what you ought to do, in order to make 
yourself what you ought to be, perfectly good, per- 
fectly happy, and perfectly wise. But they differ 
very much as to the nature of the message ; and, in 
particular, each declares, that he himself is the only 
one right, and that all others who have not the same 
credentials with himself are impostors. On every 
Sunday, at least, one of those professed ministers of 
God rises up in the old sacred building especially 
called the church, and to which, and to no other, 
those who know the truth and value your soul would 
hope that you go ; and he there, after many prayers, 
addresses you on some portion of our present sub- 
ject — Christian Ethics. On the same day, other 
persons, claiming the same title of respect, rise up 
in other places, which they may not call holy, and 
there discourse to other persons on some portion of 
this same subject — -Christian Morals; telling them 
how they ought to live — how they can make them- 
selves happy — what they ought to become. 

Now, I need not tell you that these are the most 

important questions which man can discuss — that 

they are the questions on which, as a rational being, 

you must rule your whole life : and we have agreed 

c 2 



18 THEIK WITNESS NECESSARY. 

(have we not ?) that in answering these, as in ob- 
taining any other knowledge, we must be mainly at 
least, (I should be inclined even to say exclusively,) 
guided by the testimony of others who have lived 
longer and known more than ourselves. We agreed 
also that the first testimony to which we should 
look is that of our parents — then that of the laws of 
the land ; and for this reason, that both of these are 
in some sense set over us by God ; and therefore 
that in obeying them, we might be endeavouring to 
obey God, and so should at least be safe from pro- 
voking his anger against us, however we might err ; 
for he would be satisfied with our wish and intention 
to do his will, even if we happened to be misled by 
others in its meaning. And both our parents and 
our civil governors agree that it is necessary for us 
to have, beside themselves, some other instructors 
in Christian ethics. They say, we have either not 
time, or not sufficient knowledge, or not opportuni- 
ties, or, what is more true, we have no authority to 
undertake a certain portion of the education which 
is requisite to teach you your duty, and ensure 
you your happiness. They point to this class of 
persons, of whom you spoke just now, the professed 
ministers of God, as joined with themselves in this 
task, and they refer you to them for information 
and guidance. Your Parents, on Sundays, take you 
to church — or if, unhappily, they have departed 
from the church, they take you to a meeting house — 
and the Laivs of the land are full of rules relative to the 
clergy, as a body co-operating with the government 
in the education of the people. Parent, King, and 
Clergy, then, are the three authorized witnesses of 
God to whom you must listen. You cannot omit 
one without great danger and folly. And if they all 
happen to agree, your course is clear before you. 
And time was when they did agree — happier times 



CH. Ill] THEIR WITNESS NECESSARY. 19 

than the present — and times to which I would recall 
you, in speaking of a period 1500 years ago ; but now 
they do not agree. Instead of one body of clergy, all 
teaching the same truths, and teaching by the same 
authority, every town, and almost every village, 
has two or more individuals professing to be min- 
isters of God, and opposed to each other. And 
therefore, if you would think at all, and think you 
must, you will be compelled at one time or other to 
doubt, and ask which is the true minister of God 
— the one whom I have to follow — the one who 
witnesses most truly God's truths of Christian Mo- 
rals, and will supply, what neither parents nor ma- 
gistrates profess to give me, a certain, most impor- 
tant aid and instruction in the art of becoming wise, 
and good, and happy ? 

You must make your decision. And, in making 
this decision, let us consider calmly and quietly to- 
gether what will be the safest course. 

And first, then, is it a light question ? Do your 
Parents, and does the State, tell you that it is a light 
thing, whether you add to their instruction the in- 
struction of a minister of God ? Or is it not the 
first lesson which they would teach you ? Would 
they like you to read no religious books — to attend 
no religious worship — to make no prayers — to con- 
fine yourself to the lessons of your home, imperfect 
and often erroneous as they are, and to an absti- 
nence from open crime, which is all the morality 
expressly contemplated by the statute-books of the 
land ? Or, do they tell you, that without religion 
you cannot be either obedient to them, a good son, 
or a good citizen, or happy and good in yourself, 
or any thing but a curse to your fellow- creatures. 
They may, indeed, at times neglect to tell you this ; 
or falter and hesitate in the selection of the religious 
teacher whom you are to follow ; but put the ques- 



20 IMPORTANCE OF DISTINGUISHING THEM. 

tion to them boldly, and they will answer at once, 
that religion you must have as a part of your ethics ; 
and to have religion, you must have a religious 
teacher of some kind or another distinct from them- 
selves. In neglecting, therefore, to make some 
choice, you are neglecting their testimony ; and you 
must do it at the same peril as if you would put a 
light to gunpowder when they warned you against 
it, or persisted in refusing to consult a physician 
when they told you must die unless you did. 

But consider another thing. 

Suppose two or more men were some day to 
come before you, professing to bring each a message 
and communication from your sovereign ; let the 
message contain information of the highest import- 
ance to your interest, pointing out to you a mode 
of securing his favour, and threatening the severest 
penalties on disobedience ; or even without such 
conditions (for this is the better way to regard it), 
— let it be a simple message from your sovereign, 
suggesting a mere trifle. And when the messengers 
stand before you, let each charge the other with 
being an impostor each declare his own message 
true, and the other false. Will it be a light thing to 
determine which should be recognized ? Will not 
mere reverence for your sovereign require a care- 
ful examination into their respective pretensions ? 
Will you not risk much by sending them both away 
in contempt, because it may be difficult to decide 
between them, and insult your sovereign by reject- 
ing his true messenger and message, because some 
one had forged another ? 

Now, this is your position towards God in these 
unhappy days ; and the very first lesson which you 
must be taught in Christian Ethics, is the solemn 
and awful responsibility laid upon your shoulders, 
as soon as you begin to think upon the subject, of 



CH. III.] HOW TO BE DISTINGUISHED. 21 

deciding which religious teacher you shall follow in 
learning the art of becoming good. You can have 
but one. Which shall it be ? 

Let us see if the following suggestions may not 
be useful in this choice. 

First, then, does your Parent take you to the 
church? Does he tell you that the clergyman of 
the parish is to be your religious instructor ? And 
if this is not the case, I have little intention of 
addressing myself to you. Here, then, you have 
your parent's voice to guide you first ; and he has 
a claim from God on you to follow him. Secondly, 
what says your Sovereign and the laws of the land ? 
I will not at present say what ought to be done, if 
the laws of the land spoke differently. And yet 
the government of the country, ordained as it is 
of God, ought to have great weight ; and if your 
parent bade you to commit an act which the laws 
forbade, you would be bound to disobey him, and 
obey the laws. And why? because of two powers 
both appointed by God, the Parent and the State, 
the State is the greater. But happily as yet you 
are not thus embarrassed ; for the State agrees 
with your Parent, and recommends, and till lately 
it would even compel, you to take the Church, for 
your instructor, and would prohibit others from 
drawing you away elsewhere, and would punish 
them for leading, and you for following. Even now 
the Church is " established ;" that is, the govern- 
ment acknowledges it as the body whom it respects, 
and wishes to be respected and to be listened to by 
all its subjects. And so it has done for more than 
1200 years. 

Now with these two voices joining together, 
you must be running a great risk, setting at nought 
very grave testimony, if ygu adopt any other teacher 
than the clergyman of the parish. 



22 HEREDITARY RELIGION. 

Still it may be, that both, the voices are wrong. 
There was a time when Parents were idolaters, and 
Kings idolaters ; and Christianity came down upon 
earth with a message from God declaring against 
both ; and yet men were bound to receive it. And 
so it may be, that among the many men professing 
to be ministers from God, charged with a message 
to you from him on your duty and your goodness, 
the true one may not be the same as is selected by 
your Parent or your Sovereign. "What are you to 
do ? I answer, you must ask, not the clergyman, 
but all the others who come to you, to produce their 
credentials. I say, not the clergyman ; for you have 
fully sufficient reason, in the witness of your Parent 
and of the State, to believe he is right until he is 
proved to be wrong. Men do not rake up the title- 
deed of their estates, — do not come forth before 
a judge with a busy, bustling, meddling, officious, 
offer to prove their right to a property, until that 
right is disputed; until it is disputed not merely 
generally, suspiciously, vaguely, but by a positive 
distinct charge of a flaw in some specified point, 
and that charge made by a party who, if you do 
not refute him, will turn you out and take possess- 
sion. Until the charge wears this aspect, a judge 
would refuse to hear the cause, and a man in his 
senses will say nothing, do nothing, but remain 
firm and secure on the ground of prescription. 
And so with regard to knowledge ; for knowledge 
is a possession; and belief is a great good; and 
freedom from doubt and uncertainty in following 
our teachers is a precious inheritance, not lightly 
to be parted with nor disturbed; recommended to 
us by God himself in his word, who bids us " walk 
in the old ways, and stand in the old paths ;" who 
by his institutions in nature inclines us all to ad- 
here to what we have received, and through this 



CH. III.] REJECT HUMAN INTRUDERS. 23 

instinct binds together into one, child with parent, 
man with man, generation with generation ; keep- 
ing order in the movements of society ; giving per- 
manence to principles ; bringing mind close to mind, 
that knowledge may be poured from one into the 
other ; linking and holding all things in their place, 
as the creation itself is kept in place, by the same 
law which rolls the planets in their course — the law 
that all things should continue as they are, until 
something occurs to disturb them. 

Brought up, therefore, to believe the Church, 
continue in it. Till a man impugns that belief, 
allow no doubt to intrude ; and if doubt does in- 
trude, reject it without seeking an answer — you do 
not need one. When a man is found to impugn it, 
ask him, first, if he proposes to give you any thing 
instead ? Has he any better authority of his own ? 
Does he offer any good, threaten any evil ? Will 
any ulterior measures follow, if you do not listen to 
him ? If none, turn away from him in contempt. 
He asks you to disallow the validity of your title to 
a possession wantonly, and for the sake of invalidat- 
ing it, and for this only. Does he come threatening 
you with consequences ? Bid him first produce his 
own title-deeds ? Ask the dissenter, who claims to 
be a minister from God, with a right to assist you 
in your study and in your practice of Christian 
ethics, " Are you appointed? Have you been sent? 
Where is your commission? Where is the proof 
that I shall offend God by not listening to you? 
Where is the evidence that the message you would 
deliver really came from God ?" Till they can 
shew you this, rest secure as you are. You are 
obeying God in obeying your Parent and your 
Governors. And till He sends another messenger 
revoking their commission, you cannot depart from 



24 NATURE OF THE CHURCH'S WITNESS. 

them without a grievous sin. And what the nature 
of this commission should be, I will tell you pre- 
sently. 

But I will tell you first, what the clergyman of 
your parish will or ought to say to you, when you 
are thus beset with doubts, and obliged to drive off 
men who threaten to intrude on his privilege of 
guiding and instructing you in your duty. It may 
be, his words may be different from these ; but 
these are what he ought to utter. If he take other 
ground, he is not asserting his own rights as they 
may be asserted with truth, and without the possi- 
bility of their being defeated. 

He would say to you, " You believe me now to 
be your proper religious instructor in your duty 
both to God and man ; to have in my hands your 
manual of Christian Ethics ; to know best the pro- 
per mode of making you good, and wise, and happy, 
— because your parents and the laws of the land 
have told you this. It is a wise and adequate rea- 
son. But God has given you not only a heart to 
obey them and trust in them, but a mind capable 
of understanding in many cases the reasons of their 
injunctions. It is one thing, and a great thing, to 
do what rightful authority commands us to do ; it 
is another thing, added on to this as an ornament, 
and indulgence, and confirmation, and guide, to see 
the wisdom and rectitude of the command. And 
now that you are doing your duty in putting con- 
fidence in me, I will do my duty by shewing you 
that I am entitled to it. I will produce to you my 
title-deeds. I will indulge you with a sight of my 
commission from God ; prove to you that I am no 
pretender ; not self-appointed ; not a teacher of my 
own inventions ; not a profferer of a forged mes- 
sage ; not one who dares to promise and threaten 



CII. III.] NATURE Or THE CHURCIl's WITNESS. 25 

in the name of God, without having received His 
especial injunction so to do, and His engagement 
to ratify my terms/' 

" You look on me now as an individual. Learn 
as the very first thing, that so far as concerns my 
teaching you, my claim to make you good and 
happy, I am not an individual, but the representa- 
tive of a vast body. I have neither will of my own, 
reason of my own, goodness of my own, nor power 
of my own. Almost as Balaam said of old (Numb, 
xxiv. 13), 4 If thou wouldest give me thy house full 
of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the com- 
mandment of that body, to do either good or bad of 
mine own mind ; but what that body saith, that will 
I speak.' I may be ignorant : I have many faults ; 
I may be weak and old ; umvorthy, most unworthy, 
of being employed as a messenger from God to man. 
Or, on the other hand, I may have talents, be elo- 
quent, be blessed with many graces, have power 
over many affections. But all these have little to 
do with my office as regards yourself. A letter is 
little affected by the appearance of him who brings 
it. A truth is still a truth, though he who reports 
it is in other matters a liar. Woe to me, if I so 
present to you my message, as that from fault of 
mine you should be disinclined to receive it ! But 
woe also to you, if you will not accept with rever- 
ence what I bring to you from God, because you 
dislike or despise in me something which comes 
from man ! 

" I told you that I was only the representative, 
the agent, of a vast body ; armed with their power ; 
declaring their words ; inviting you to place your- 
self under their guidance, not under mine ; doing 
little or nothing but as of them. Look round you 
on this side and that, and in every part of the 
country you will see others like myself, each in his 

D 



26 NATURE OF THE CHURCH'S WITNESS. 

own district representing the same body, and minis- 
tering like me in an ancient holy building, especially 
called the church ; each acknowledging with me the 
same fact, that as individuals they are nothing. 

" How came we here ? Did we come among 
you of ourselves, without any authority to send us ? 
Should I be permitted to preach in this pulpit, or 
to minister at this altar, if I came and claimed a 
right to do so as of my own will ? No ; before any 
one of us could venture to do this, we received a spe- 
cial and most solemn commission from the heads and 
rulers of this body or society, of which I need not 
tell you that the name is the Church. They dele- 
gated to us the power to which, if you would ever 
become good, you must have recourse at our hands. 
They bound us to watch over you, to teach you, 
pray for you, enlighten you, feed you, do for your 
minds all that the most affectionate of parents would 
do for your bodies ; which, if we have failed to do, 
as too often we have failed, the curse is upon our 
heads, not on them who sent us forth. And they 
swore us to a rigid adherence to the truths which 
they put into our mouth. Nothing was to be added, 
nothing to be taken away. A certain body of 
teaching we were commanded to proclaim before 
you, constantly and earnestly, in public and in pri- 
vate. It was not our own invention ; it was put 
into our hands by others. Any thing which might 
win you to listen, bring you to understand it, so 
long as the teaching itself was not an iota altered, 
we were permitted and encouraged to employ. We 
might set the jewel in gold work, but not work 
which injured the stone, or hid it, or impaired its 
lustre ; only such as would fix it in your minds, and 
enhance its glory." 

What this teaching was, and what these powers, 
is not for my present purpose. But one thing you 



CM. III.] NATURE OF THE CHURCH'S WITNESS. 27 

may be told : this teaching is full of mysteries of 
things which human reason, as many men around 
will tell you, cannot fathom, cannot reconcile with 
experience, cannot explain. How far these words 
are true, I do not attempt to assert. But I ask you, 
if at the very first sight this does not seem to be 
a mark of knowledge not invented by man. Man 
would not invent for man a system of belief so full, as 
you are here told, of contradictions and perplexities. 
He would try to make it simple and easy ; as men, 
who will not receive the doctrines of the Church, 
try to alter them into some form, which they can 
explain, and others can understand. Once more, 
these powers are very great ; they are even awful : 
if not truly conferred by God, they are blasphem- 
ously assumed by man. I ask you, does this seem 
to indicate a human invention ? Impostors, indeed, 
have endeavoured to subdue the minds of followers 
by vague threats and promises, which cannot be 
proved, of Divine favour. But the promise of 
communicating to man the Divine nature itself, of 
bringing down the Deity from heaven, and infusing 
his own Spirit into the souls of miserable mortals — 
this, which is nothing more than the every- day pro- 
mise of the Church, proclaimed and administered by 
every minister of the Church every time that he 
stands by the font, or serves at the altar, — is it 
not so awful, so tremendous, that we scarcely bear 
to read it written, except in familiar words which 
scarcely touch the ear ? Should we not expect 
that such a lie, if lie it be, if God has never sanc- 
tioned the offer, must long since have drawn down 
vengeance on the blasphemer, instead of being pre- 
served for 1800 years as a great and holy treasure, 
the very palladium of the Church, the corner-stone 
of the Christian faith, the salt of the earth ? 

From whence, then, did the rulers of the Church 



28 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

receive these truths, and the powers thus mysteri- 
ously committed to them. It was not yesterday, 
nor one generation back, that they were framed, 
and nearly in that form and order in which we now 
possess them. Our creeds, our articles of faith, our 
Bible, — these contain the system of ethical teaching 
by which clergymen are bound to abide, and which 
they are to inculcate upon you. Our liturgies and 
offices of worship, — these are the acts and exhibi- 
tion of that power, which they are bound to exercise 
towards you. Whence did they come ? They came 
to us in this land, varied slightly but not impaired 
in any essential part, from a still vaster Society, just 
as the branch of a tree receives sap from the trunk, 
or the limb of a man receives blood from the heart. 
That society was called the Catholic Church ; not, 
remember, I entreat you, the Romish Church: the 
two things are very different, though through the 
Church of Rome much Christian truth did come to 
us. The fountain-head was farther up : it lay deep 
in antiquity. Trace back 1500, and more than 1500 
years, and there you will find the source from which 
the clergy of this day trace their teaching and their 
powers ; and to which, at the Reformation, our an- 
cestors went back, when they suspected, or rather 
knew, that the stream, as it came to us through the 
channel of the Romish Church, had been mixed and 
corrupted with novel and human imaginations. 

What, then, was the Catholic Church ? It was 
a society framed to extend over the whole earth ; 
which, like that Indian tree, might grow up in state - 
liness and beauty, throwing out its roots on all sides, 
and from them shooting up fresh trunks, each to be- 
come a giant tree itself, each to send forth new roots, 
and those roots new trunks and trees, until the sur- 
face of the earth was covered, and all the beasts of 
the field might lie down for shelter in its shade. It 



CH. III.] THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 29 

was a society intended to be at once both many and 
one — many in its independent branches, for every 
bishop and diocese constituted a distinct Church ; — 
one, in the root from which it sprung ; in the iden- 
tity of doctrine which it taught ; in the spirit which 
circulated through every limb ; in the source of its 
powers ; in its hopes, and faith, and joy, and sorrow, 
and love, and fear. And to this vast, and ancient, 
and venerable society, which did in this form exist 
fifteen hundred years ago, we trace what we now 
would teach you. 

Whence, then, you will ask, did this society itself 
derive their knowledge and their powers ? They de- 
rived it from a body of thirteen men ; who from one 
place, Jerusalem, travelled in every direction into the 
most distant lands, establishing in every Church, that 
is, an independent society, with a bishop at its head. 
They travelled, remember, not together in a body, 
but separately. They imparted to every Church, 
which they separately founded, one set of doctrines ; 
which that Church was charged to keep as a most 
precious deposit ; to allow not the slightest altera- 
tion ; to transmit it under the same solemn injunc- 
tion to their successors — to teach it to all the mem- 
bers of the Church, that none might be able to 
falsify it without detection — to compare it con- 
stantly with the doctrines preserved in other sister 
Churches — to meet and condemn at once whatever 
opinions impugned it — " not even to listen to an an- 
gel" who should preach to them any thing different. 
Wherever a Church was founded, this was the 
course enjoined. In all was the same doctrine. But 
they also appointed ministers, solemnly committed 
to them the government of these Churches, and 
made them the channels for conveying through a 
perpetual succession the Spirit of God himself — 
first to the people under their care, and then to 
d 2 



30 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

other rulers, who should have the same power of 
dispensing it. The society was never to die. Branch" 
was to propagate branch — shoot was to spring up 
after shoot. The sap was still to circulate — the 
tree still to stand — though death removed, one after 
the other, every atom of its substance, and trans- 
ferred it to another world. 

Now, I ask, is not the very existence of such a 
Society a strange phenomenon ? Where, in the his- 
tory of the world, is there any thing like it ? What 
mysterious power watched over and fostered its 
growth, that in a few years it was rooted firmly in 
almost every known part of the habitable globe — 
that it stood long in the fullness of its grandeur, at 
once one tree and a whole grove of trees — that even 
now some scattered trunks are remaining, and be- 
neath them we are gathering ourselves ? 

Qualis frugifero querelas sublimis in agro 
Exuvias veteres populi, sacrataque gestans 
Dona ducum ; nee jam validis radicibus hasrens, 
Pondere fixa sue- est ; nudosque per aera ramos 
Effundens, trance- non frondibus efficit umbram ; 
At quamvis prime nutet casura sub Euro, 
Tot circum sylvse firmo se robore tollant, 
Sola tamen colitur. Lucan. lib. i. 125. 

And yet the doctrines and the powers possessed by 
this vast body, thus separately and yet conjointly 
were none of them invented by itself. They were 
received, maintained, preserved as a treasure com- 
mitted to its keeping by other hands — the hands of 
those thirteen men, whose journeys radiated from 
Jerusalem over nearly the whole earth. Surely 
these must have had grounds for thus requiring men 
to accept their teaching, and place themselves under 
their government — men, we have reason to know, 
most of them illiterate ; all of them Jews, and there- 
fore hated and despised — none coming with powers 



CH. III.] THE CATHOLIC CHUECH. 31 

of human art or human eloquence ; and yet thus able 
to lay the foundation of a system, which not the 
greatest of heathen philosophers, in all their aspira- 
tions to raise a sanctuary for truth, could dare to 
imagine, nor the most powerful of monarchs has 
been able to realise. They had miracles to rouse 
attention. More than this, the Spirit of God went 
with them, entering into the hearts of those whom 
it adopted, and thus bringing them into union with 
the body ; and then came additional wonders to 
condemn those who would not believe ; and lastly, 
reason, and eloquence, and knowledge, to convict 
them by their own weapons. 

And whence did the apostles themselves derive 
their powers and their teaching? They derived 
them from One who was their Teacher — who died, 
and rose again from the dead. And why those 
thirteen apostles, and all those who formed the in- 
fant Church, did thus receive implicitly from Him, 
as from God himself, the words, and promises, and 
gifts, which they imparted to all the Churches found- 
ed by them, I will not weary you by repeating. As 
yet we little require it. The plague of unbelief 
in this country has not, among educated men, yet 
reached our vitals. We distrust individual teachers. 
We think nothing of the witness of our national 
Church. As for the Catholic Church, its very name 
is shunned, as if it were a symbol of Popery. But 
we still believe that what the apostles taught is true ; 
and that they taught nothing which was not sanc- 
tioned by their Lord and ours ; and that what the 
Lord spoke were the words of God. 

Such, then, are the grounds on which a minister 
of the Church would claim or ought to claim to stand 
over you, the boy, or young man, who are now read- 
ing this little book, as your teacher and guide in the 
pursuit of your happiness and goodness. He has 



32 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

truths, higher than man can reach, which you must 
learn — truths communicated by God to Christ, by 
Christ to his Apostles, by the Apostles to the Catholic 
Church, by the Catholic Church to our forefathers, 
from them passed on to this present generation, in 
this generation set before you each by the ministers 
whom the Church has appointed. And they have 
powers, mysterious and awful, which no mere human 
being could of himself pretend to possess ; which, 
through the same regular channel, successively de- 
rived from Christ, he will now exercise towards you 
in making you what you ought to be — wise, and 
good, and happy. 

No other professed minister of God in this 
country can say the same. The Romanist has re- 
ceived the powers ; but he confesses to have altered 
the doctrines in the course of their transmission. 
The dissenter does not even pretend to have re- 
ceived either the powers or the doctrines. He as- 
serts, indeed, doctrines, and some few assert powers ; 
but both are traced to man, to some human teacher 
of late date, or to some conception of his own, by 
which one man has wrought out one scheme, and 
another another, from the same words of the Bible. 
And thus both classes alike have imagined a creed, 
instead of receiving it, fixed and unalterable, by an 
external revelation from God. 



CH.IV.] ETHICS TIIK SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 33 



CHAPTER IV. 

My dear Reader, — You imagine that all this has 
little connexion with Ethics. You think Ethics a sci- 
ence, in which no words are to occur but conscience, 
and duty, and virtue, and vice, and expediency, and 
reason ; that the facts and the doctrines of religion, 
and still more of Christianity, and still more of the 
Catholic Church, are out of place in a work upon 
morals. So we have been taught to think of late 
years. And men have risen up professing to teach 
you how to act, and to point out the way to happi- 
ness, and to analyse your affections, and to explain 
why this is right and that is wrong, without giving 
a single hint even that they believed in a God ; still 
less that he has provided any standard or judge of 
right, or any means for attaining it, or any testimony 
to the truths which he has declared, apart from what 
men call the system of nature. Of old this was not 
so ; and in the earliest times of Christianity no such 
thing existed as a science of morals apart from the 
science of religion. Christianity was the only ethical 
system, and Christian ministers the only ethical 
teachers. 

For, what do you mean by Ethics ? It is a word 
implying rules for forming particular characters by 
means of habitual actions. In one word, it is the 
science of education — not of instruction, remem- 
ber, as applied solely to the filling the memory with 
knowledge — but of education, of rearing up the 
human mind from infancy to age, from weakness to 
strength ; " training it in the way in which it should 



34 MAN ALONE CANNOT EDUCATE. 

go, so that when it is old it may not depart from it." 
But if you cannot commence any science, much less 
the science of morals, without learning its funda- 
mental principles from the testimony of others, the 
very first thing to be done is, to shew you which 
testimony is to be followed. And any discussion of 
ethics which does not include the fact of a Catholic 
Apostolical Church, must be as faulty as a theory of 
astronomy which left out the sun. If a sculptor 
wishes to convert a block of marble into a statue, he 
must require three conditions : — First, he must have 
before him a clear, definite conception of the statue 
which he proposes to create; — secondly, he must 
understand accurately the nature of the marble itself; 
— thirdly, he must have the power of working on 
and moulding his materials. Without all these he 
must inevitably fail. Even, therefore, if the mind of 
man were, what it is not, to his fellow-man as the 
dead passive marble to the hands of the sculptor, it 
would be a matter of the deepest interest to inquire , 
if He who made man at first had in any revelation 
communicated any information of man's original 
nature, given any outline of his ultimate perfection, 
pointed out any means for realising it. If we search 
through a heathen philosopher, professedly human — 
through Aristotle or Plato — for intimations on these 
three points, how much more should we look for the 
chance of intimations from God in any communica- 
tion professing to come from him ! 

But the human mind is not as marble to the 
sculptor ; it is not a dead, passive, inert substance, 
which yields unresistingly to the hand which would 
mould it. Far from it. It is a living thing full of 
motion, and with its own laws of motion ; rapid as 
thought, unseen and untraceable, " glancing from 
heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven," and 
gathering at every turn innumerable combinations 



CH. IV.] MAN ALONE CANNOT EDUCATE. 35 

of its own ideas, like the shapes in a kaleidoscope. 
And no eye of man can follow it, and no hand or 
voice command its progress. And these changes do 
not pass away, leaving it as it was ; but every one, 
like the thousand imperceptible touches by which 
time mellows a picture, or eats into a ruin, leaves its 
trace behind it — here a stain, and there a lustre ; 
here adding strength, and there decay ; here corrod- 
ing its very heart, there consolidating and coating it 
with a hard and imperishable shell. What would 
a painter say, if, while he was working on his can- 
vass, the lines shifted of themselves, one colour faded, 
another became vivid, others melted away together, 
all the tints and figures became floating like a quick- 
sand, or like motes in a sunbeam, — and he knowing 
little or nothing of the laws of these changes, unable 
to see the greater part of them, incapable of com- 
bining his colours so as to keep them fixed, was told 
to continue his picture ? Would he not recognise 
at once that to paint it was beyond his art ; that 
some other power was at work, to which he must 
defer ? And so it is with man. The education of 
man is beyond the reach of man. He knows nothing, 
and can know nothing, of the secret fluctuations of 
the mind ; and without knowing these, how can he 
control or turn them to his purpose ? For an hour, 
perhaps, on some great occasion of one absorbing 
passion, an orator may bend the mind to his will, 
and hold it steady to one end ; but an orator is one 
of the rarest creations of nature ; and his time is 
limited, and the circumstances of his action rare. 

And yet, in the present age, we talk of education 
as an easy thing. We plan schools, and form sys- 
tems, and boast of our powers, though every day, by 
general results of evil, is shewing that our efforts 
are failing : and nothing but our ignorance of what 
really passes in the mind — ignorance increased by 



36 MAN ALONE CANNOT EDUCATE. 

the facility with which our present mode of instruc- 
tion tutors the young to conceal their thoughts — 
nothing but this prevents us from tracing the mis- 
chief in the case of individuals. 

And therefore, my dear reader, when I, this little 
book, am coming to you in the hope of improving 
your mind, and when you are placed, as soon you 
will be, in some post of authority over your fellow- 
creatures — over a child, or a friend, or a pupil, or 
the poor, or a people — let us both remember, that to 
control these minds does not belong to us ; that He* 
only who made and beholds them can mould them 
as He chooses ; that education belongs unto God. 

And yet man is commanded to educate. What 
is all government but a branch of education ? What 
are schools, books, lectures, punishments and rewards, 
promises and threatenings, but means of education ? 
And without these, what will become of the world ? 
It will fall into ruin if a man neglect his duty ; and 
education is one of his first and grandest duties ; and 
yet he is wholly unable to educate. Here is another 
paradox. He can no more hope to educate than he 
can hope to calculate correctly a sum of which half 
the items are unseen, and the other half alter as he 
counts them. What, then, can he do ? He can 
combine certain outward circumstances ; he can 
apply certain stimulating objects ; he can proclaim 
certain truths ; he can set before the eyes of others 
spectacles and examples for imitation or avoidance ; 
- — but in so doing he is working in the dark ; he 
cannot see how they will affect the mind ; he must 
trust to Providence to turn to good what he himself 
has contrived for good. 

And now, if you can realise this fact, you will 
see why, as every enquiry into ethical science is vir- 
tually a treatise on education, so every act of edu- 
cation throws us back upon a search for some com- 



CH. IV.] MAN ALONE HAS NO RIGHT TO EDUCATE. 37 

munication from God, telling us what the human mind 
is, which wempannot see ; giving us positive rules for 
combining our external circumstances, so that if these 
fail, we shall at least have the satisfaction of having 
acted in obedience to God ; promising, moreover, the 
gift of some Supernatural Influence to work where 
we cannot penetrate, softening, and moulding, and 
bending to our touch, man's nature in the inmost 
recesses of his heart. Without this, education is a 
dream. It is empty speculation, guess-work, gam- 
bling, in which the best-planned schemes may fail, 
and the worst answer ; and no consolation will remain 
for disappointment, and no satisfaction in success. 
And to obtain this, we must recur to Revelation; for 
Revelation we must go to the Apostles ; for commu- 
nication with the Apostles we must go to the Catholic 
Church. And thus our ancestors, who cleared away 
from our own system the corruptions of Popery, did 
fall back on the witness of those good and wise men 
who lived fifteen hundred years ago ; and we must 
do so likewise. 

But I will mention another reason why Educa- 
tion, and therefore Ethics, unconnected with the 
Church, is a fundamental fallacy. I have said what 
many will think strange, that man by himself is un- 
able to educate man ; I add now, what many will 
think stranger, that without the Church he has no 
right to educate him. If man stands before his fel- 
low-mortals as a human creature only, whence does 
he derive the right to interfere with and control 
them ? It may seem expedient for the general peace ; 
but every man will deem himself the best judge of 
his ow r n interest. It may be agreeable to a parent's 
conscience, or a teacher's sense of duty ; but his 
conscience is no better authority, simply as the con- 
science of a man, than the equally strong conviction 
of the child that no control is necessary or useful. 

E 



38 MAN ALONE HAS NO RIGHT TO EDUCATE. 

It may be imposed by the laws of the land ; but if 
the laws of the land themselves are merely human, 
how is this right in them to be reconciled with the 
fundamental maxim of modern politics, that " all 
men are equal?" One thing indeed, remains, — 
"physical force." The stronger must educate the 
weak — educate him after his own fashion — take on 
himself the responsibility of shaping and moulding 
an immortal spirit, which will retain this shape, and 
with it the infinite consequences attached to it, of 
good or of evil, throughout an infinite existence of 
happiness or of misery. But you think you will do 
him good ; you wish to improve him ! Even so you 
may think you would improve your neighbour" s gar- 
den, and contribute to his comfort, by cutting down 
some trees or turning a walk ; but the utmost bene- 
volence of intention will not save you from an action 
of trespass, if he prohibit your entrance on his pre- 
mises. And if a child will stand sentinel at the door 
of his heart and deny you access, and demand your 
right to meddle with the formation of his character — 
(and what child will not readily catch the plea?) and 
you have no answer to give, but that you are a man 
with a stronger arm, and wish to do him good in a 
way which he does not like, — will not the school-room 
very soon become a scene of rods and scuffles ; and 
education be a mere tyranny, with sullen, indignant, 
discontented, contemptuous subjection on the one 
hand, and arbitrary, irritated brute force lording 
it on the other ? Be assured that no power in the 
world exists except by derivation or permission from 
God ; and that all power used without a solemn ac- 
knowledgment of its Author is an usurpation ; and 
man will not obey, and God will visit it with a curse. 
If you educate as a parent, remember that a parent 
is to his family the type and representative of God. 
If as a civil governor, recall the noble words of our 



CH.1V.] DIVINE AUTHORITY NECESSARY. 39 

old English constitution, " Rex est vicarius Dei." 
If as a minister of religion, let not your words or 
acts be seen to come from man, but trace them all 
to God. Stand always before the child as the mi- 
nister and representative of God ; and then you will 
have a right to educate him, which he cannot dis- 
pute, which he will willingly allow. 

But for this very reason you cannot educate 
without the Church ; no ! nor without a distinct 
positive revelation from God, declaring the validity 
even of those appointments which seem to be made 
by nature. If the Parent and the State stand over the 
child as ministers of God, the child will ask for their 
credentials. And how these credentials are to be 
conveyed, except by a distinct revelation, it is hard 
to say. The Parent now will answer with the fifth 
commandment, " Honour thy father and thy mother ;" 
and the State with the express declaration of the 
Apostle, " Fear God, and honour the king." But 
without some such voice from heaven, the mere facts 
that a child is born from a parent, and that govern- 
ment must exist wherever there is society, and society 
wherever there is man, would scarcely be sufficient 
to sustain a claim to a divine authority. Therefore 
both parental and civil authority require the sup- 
port and witness of the Church, or they fall to the 
ground. But when they thus recognise the existence 
of the Church as a commissioned ambassador from 
God, they must also recognise its full powers. If 
two ministers from a court are negociating in a 
foreign country, and a third is sent out to them 
armed with additional authority, not to supersede, 
indeed, but to control and aid them ; if those two 
will persist in acting without the third, or will tres- 
pass on his privileges, they are disobeying their 
master, betraying their cause, annihilating their own 
commission. And thus, if either Parent or State 



40 DIVINE AUTHORITY NECESSARY. 

attempt to educate man without the co-operation of 
the Church, without giving to it its due prominence 
and precedency, without allowing, nay, requiring the 
exercise of all the powers committed to it, they are 
flying in the face of their Lord and Master, and they 
must take the consequences. 

Education without the Church is an absurdity ; 
and therefore a system of Ethics which is not based 
upon the system of the Church must be an absurdity 
likewise. 



DIFFERENCE OF CHRISTIANITY AND ETHICS. 41 



CHAPTER V. 

What, then, you may ask, is the difference between 
Ethics and the Catholic religion ? If I am to be 
placed under the guidance of the Church, and the 
Church is ready in all points to act as my teacher, 
what need of any other system? This question I 
now propose to answ T er. Let us see the whole dif- 
ficulty. Christianity, then, contains a system of 
truths relating to the nature of man, to its destina- 
tion, the means of perfecting it, the knowledge 
necessary for its perfection, the laws of its conduct, 
its relation and duties to other beings. The science 
of Ethics contains a system, or rather as many 
systems as there are ethical writers, in which doc- 
trines are propounded on precisely the same subject. 
The Church with the Bible is on on one side ; Plato, 
and Aristotle, and Zeno, and Epicurus, and Locke, 
and Hobbes, and Paley, and Rousseau, on the other. 
What are the differences between them ? 

First, then, one comes from God ; the other 
from man. 

Secondly, the one which comes from God, whe- 
ther w r e understand it or not, we are bound to 
receive ; the other, coming only from man, we must 
examine for ourselves. 

Thirdly, from this cause, it is absolutely neces- 
sary that the human system should appear in a 
scientific form — that is, that it should be drawn out 
from certain axioms and principles ; the reasons for 
its conclusions given — the positions ranged in regu- 
lar deductions — in order that at each step the under- 
e 2 



42 DIFFEBENCE OF CHRISTIANITY AND ETHICS. 

standing of the hearer may witness to the accuracy 
of the teacher : whereas the system which comes 
from God may be presented to us piece-meal, as it 
were, in scattered portions, " here a line and there a 
line." If an army have full and implicit confidence 
in their general, they will execute all his orders, 
though no one soldier knows why he does this, or his 
comrade does that ; the plan of operation is reserved 
in the mind of the commander. But if they have 
no confidence in him, they will persist in inquiring 
to be told each the why and the wherefore of the 
injunctions, and he must lay the chart before them 
in a formal shape. 

Fourthly, as a necessary consequence, in receiv- 
ing on testimony the system of Christianity, we 
abandon our own judgment of its contents, put our 
trust in God, and make his word the standard of 
truth. In studying human ethics, we take our own 
feelings, knowledge, experience, or conscience, as 
the test of true and false, each individual for him- 
self and on each particular point. We may therefore 
acknowledge it in parts ; Christianity we must take 
as a whole, without any deduction or reservation. 

Fifthly, as that which comes from God must be 
true, and truth can be only one, there cannot be 
many systems of Christian, as there are of heathen 
ethics. There can be no sects or schools within the 
Church. In all points acknowledged to be revealed, 
there must be uniform agreement ; an agreement 
not founded on the conviction of the understanding 
— for different persons can scarcely ever see the same 
principles in precisely the same light — but on a con- 
viction of the heart, that what such and such an 
authority declared to be revealed, was revealed; and 
that what was revealed is true, whether we can ex- 
plain it or not. 

Such being some of the differences between the 



CH. V.] RESEMBLANCES BETWEEN THEM. 43 

two systems, let us now see some of their resem- 
blances. And the main resemblance, next to the 
identity of subject, is this : that exactly in proportion 
as human reason has made accurate observations of 
the human mind — has traced out its laws correctly — 
has been directed by good feelings to good ends, in 
the same proportion it will approach to truth, and 
therefore to Christianity. Now, there never was a 
time when human reason was so acute and profound 
— when there were such opportunities of seeing it 
laid bare in all its evil forms — and, therefore, when 
good and great minds w r ere roused to grapple with 
it with such vigorous and noble exertions, as in the 
age of Plato and Aristotle. If you w r ould under- 
stand anatomy, you must study it in the bodies of 
the dead. If you w r ould be a good physician, you 
must practise in a lazar-house. And Greece was a 
lazar-house of morals ; and one blessed effect it 
did produce, it raised up the noblest minds to 
wrestle with the plague, and aid us in wrestling with 
it also. Thus, too, no ethical speculator since them 
has ever approached to their excellence, or so near 
to the system of the gospel. For this reason, also, 
they are the proper waiters to be studied, w r hen we 
would know what man by himself has thought of 
man : and Plato, even more than Aristotle — first, be- 
cause his nature and character w r ere more like w r hat 
a Christian character would be ; he had more heart, 
and feeling, and affection — and, secondly, from a 
cause, which offers another point of resemblance be- 
tween Christian and heathen Ethics. 

Plato, to a considerable degree, derived his know- 
ledge of Ethics from an ancient revelation. For, even 
before the coming of Christ, man had not been left 
without an external declaration of his duties. The 
ten commandments, and all the other moral portions 
of the Mosaic laws, were not wrought out by the 



44 HEATHEN ETHICS BASED ON KEVELAT10N. 

reason of Moses, but written by the finger of God. 
Before Moses, revelations had been made to Abra- 
ham and the patriarchs ; before them to Noah ; be- 
fore Noah to Adam. Never, I entreat you, listen 
to silly talkers, who would tell you that man sprang 
out of the. ground in a rude and helpless state ; that 
they began with living on pignuts, and scraping holes 
in the ground ; and that God left them to shift for 
themselves — to form their own language, their own 
society, their own morals, their own religion. God 
never left them to themselves, till they had first 
abandoned God. When they did not choose to re- 
tain God in their thoughts, God then gave them 
over to a reprobate mind, but not before. 1 And, 
till then, He was constantly warning them by his 
own voice, by parents, and kings, and priests, 
and prophets. And thus in the East, where these 
kings, and priests, and prophets were formed into 
vast empires and hierarchies, standing like a gigantic 
temple on the solid foundations of antiquity, the 
light of God's primitive revelations was kept alive ; 
lingering on like the long twilight in northern skies, 
while on all the rest of the earth, and especially on 
Greece, a thick darkness fell down, and men were 
compelled to walk by a light which they kindled for 
themselves. And yet how little this light could 
serve them, may be learnt from the fact, that Plato, 
who, of all the Greeks, approached nearest to the 
truth, traces the chief part of his knowledge from 
the East and oriental traditions — that Aristotle wan- 
ders wrong as soon as he deserts the instructions of 
his master Plato — that almost all that is good either 
in Grecian poetry or Grecian science may be traced 
to the East, as to a root. As if no knowledge could 
spring up in man, except it flowed originally from 

1 Rom. i. 28. 



CH. V.] FAITH REQUIRED IN BOTH. 45 

the first and only fountain of truth — the voice of 
God. Both Christian, then, and heathen Ethics are 
based on a revelation from God. 

I will mention to you two other points of com- 
parison between Christian and unchristian Ethics. 
And I dwell on these points at length, because, as you 
will one day see, the whole character of your ethical 
study and instruction must depend on your know- 
ledge of them. Building a house is one thing, and 
choosing between architects is another ; but this 
choice must precede the building, and when it has 
been wisely made, you have little else to think of. 
And you are now learning to build up in your own 
heart that which a holy man of old called " the 
Inner House of man" — a shrine of truth, and a sanc- 
tuary for the Spirit of God. 1 And you cannot build 
it of yourself, you must go to architects. 

One point, then, to be observed, is, that all sys- 
tems alike come, and must come to you, with the 
same declaration, that if you are to study them at 
all, you must begin by taking the word of their re- 
spective teachers as a guarantee for the truth of them. 
You must act upon, before you understand them ; 
and by acting on them, you will see if they are false. 
If I offer you a sovereign, you may doubt if it be 
good ; but unless you take it in your hand, as if it 
were good, and proceed to make some purchase with 
it, you will never know whether it be good or bad. 
You are told that a river is ten feet deep. You do 
not believe it. Will not "believing it ever shew you 
whether it is so of not ? No ; you will act at once 
as if it were that depth. You take a pole of that 
length, and you sound, and the proof is there at once. 
If you are told that a book will amuse you, you will 

1 See a very beautiful tract, included in the works of St. 
Bernard, entitled De Interior e Domo. 



46 FAITH EEQUIRED IN BOTH. 

never know the fact till you act precisely the same 
as if you were sure it was amusing, and proceed to 
read it. You cannot learn the truth of any state- 
ments without assuming them as true, and acting 
upon them, before you have proved them. The 
proof lies in the application. And thus St. Paul 
calls faith, or belief in what is told us, the only 
mode of bringing to the test things which we see 
not, \\zyx<><; ov /SXETrojucEvwv. 1 And still more clearly 
our Lord says, that if we would know his doctrine 
whether it be of God, we must first do his will. 

If the Church did not insist on these terms, it 
would be belying the fundamental condition of all 
human knowledge. Aristotle insists on them like- 
wise. He says that students must believe princi- 
ples, 2 and learn the cause of them afterwards — that 
they must submit to be guided by their teachers, 
before they can follow them from the heart. The 
very fact of writing a book implies that you think 
yourself wiser than your reader. And if you are 
wiser, he ought to listen to you. He is ignorant ; and 
if he would be taught, he must believe what you say. 
And we do believe men willingly, when we choose 
them ourselves. We say to ourselves, This man is 
clever, or good, or learned ; and it is not necessary 
for me to take the trouble of throwing into syllo- 
gisms, and proving by induction, every thing he 
says. I will trust him without. Look through any 
book, and see how small a part is ever stated in the 
form of strict reasoning — how little there is for 
which any proof is assigned — how few readers 
ever think of supplying the defect themselves ! 
And all which is not thus proved rests upon faith. 
Look, also, not only to the great schools of ancient 
philosophy — so many of them built upon the words 

1 Heb. xi. 1. 2 Ethic Nicom. c. 2. 



CH. V.] FAITH REQUIRED IN BOTH. 47 

of their master, like the uvtos \$a cf Pythagoras — 
so many more knowing themselves only by the name 
of their master, — but to the blind fanatical enthu- 
siasm, with which moderns have actually deified the 
teachers whom they have selected for themselves. 
So the Alexandrians spoke of their masters. So 
Lucretius speaks of Epicurus. So Cicero of Plato. 
So the French worshipped Rousseau. And men in 
modern days have not scrupled thus willingly to 
receive the bare testimony of such writers, on the 
very subjects on which men's opinions may most 
justly be suspected — namely, abstruse metaphysical 
and moral problems ; while they have rejected or 
despised the tried and persecuted testimony of the 
Catholic Church to a simple fact — the fact that a 
certain system of doctrines has been handed down in 
it from its first Founder, and that Founder a being 
of superhuman powers ; and that these doctrines 
have from the earliest times been heard in churches, 
taught to children, embodied in prayers, set forth 
in ceremonies before the eyes and ears of thou- 
sands in distinct and remote countries. But so it 
is. When men will not honour their fathers and 
their mothers, whom God has appointed to be their 
teachers, they must honour some one, and they will 
bow down before fools or madmen. When they 
refuse to retain God in their knowledge, they will 
worship idols. 

One more point of resemblance is worthy of 
your deepest attention. An ethical system which is 
not to be perpetuated — Avhich is to die away with 
its author — is an empty vanity. The mere pride of 
founding a school is enough to make men look to 
posterity. But he who possesses a truth, which he 
knows to be a truth, and a heart which is suscep- 
tible of compassion for the blindness of man, and of 
affection for his fellow-beings, and of zeal for the 



48 MEANS OF PRESERVING THE TRUTH. 

glory of God, will make it one of his first objects to 
preserve that truth in the world down to the latest 
generations. Earnestness in this object is one of 
the many signs of a true system. The history 
of the various machinery invented for this pur- 
pose would occupy a long time ; but it would be 
very instructive. Great hierarchies have been the 
chief means employed in the East. Large bodies 
of priests, with colleges, revenues, spiritual power, 
the possession of science and art, and other means 
of ruling the people, were contrived for the pur- 
pose of enshrining truth and communicating it 
safely to man. And without something of the 
kind, truth could never be preserved. But, in 
heathen times, these hierarchies, for the most part, 
became either so absolute as to command the civil 
power, or so weak as to fall under its control ; 
and in either case the truth was corrupted ; in the 
former, by the ambition of the priesthood, now left 
without a check ; in the latter, by the capricious 
interference of the secular arm. The Greek phi- 
losophers endeavoured to establish schools. They 
named their own successors. But as they had no 
powers to confer — as these successors were mere 
individuals — and as the doctrines committed to 
them were originally worked out by human reason, 
and therefore might fairly be altered by human 
reason again, — their doctrines soon became per- 
verted. Aristotle's was lost almost immediately 
after his death. Plato's soon degenerated into a 
system the very opposite of the original. The 
other sects vanished by degrees. Pythagoras alone 
seems to have had the idea of establishing a number 
of branch-societies in different places, each preserv- 
ing and transmitting the same system of truths, 
under a religious and mysterious obligation. And 
these societies, though overthrown by a popular 



CH. V.] MEANS OF PRESERVING THE TRUTH. 49 

outbreak, do appear to have held their ground for 
some time, and to have been the means of convey- 
ing to later Greek philosophy many of the older 
traditions, which Pythagoras had learned in the 
East. The later Platonists endeavoured to esta- 
lisn a " golden chain" of ordained teachers, xpuVsa 
o-sipoi, 1 for the evident purpose of rivalling the Apos- 
tolical Succession of the Christian Church. But 
only one or two links were formed. And no indi- 
viduals could preserve uncorrupted any system what- 
ever of doctrines ; nor was there any system com- 
mitted to them, so definite and precise as to be in- 
tended for such preservation. 

In modern times, men have enlisted themselves 
voluntarily under the banners of particular teachers, 
and formed sects and schools, and sometimes secret 
societies, for the propagation of doctrines. But here, 
also, there can be no obligation to keep the system 
uniformly unchanged ; and rather there is every fa- 
cility and temptation to corrupt it, as circumstances 
may seem to require. But the newest invention of 
the day is printing. Books by themselves, thrown 
out before the public eye, without any body of men 
to preserve them from being tampered with, or to 
point out their one true interpretation, are supposed 
to be a sufficient guarantee for the transmission of 
definite truth from age to age. And this in the 
face of the fact, that scarcely a book can be named, 
which has thus come down to us, about which the 
most violent disputes have not arisen as to its au- 
thenticity and the meaning of its contents. But, per- 
haps, what I said at the beginning, on the nature of 
written teaching, may throw some little light on this 
notion. 

Now compare all these plans with the plan of 

1 Eunapius, Vit. Philosoph. 

F 



50 CATHOLIC CHURCH A MEANS 

the Catholic Church. It is, in the first place, es- 
sentially independent of any human power. It is 
founded by God ; and God has promised to protect 
it, if it will not trust to any arm of flesh. It is pro- 
hibited from trespassing on the rights of kings and 
legislatures, that it may not be tempted to reduce 
them into subjection, and so, being left without a 
check, may abuse its power. Its rulers are indivi- 
dual bishops, assisted by councils of clergy in each 
diocese ; because monarchies are far less subject to 
change than popular bodies. Its supreme authority 
lies in a council of these bishops, that no individual 
bishop may be at liberty to exceed his privileges, or 
tamper with the truth. Each diocesan church is 
especially enjoined to lay the one true doctrine pub- 
licly before men, that it may not be suppressed or 
perverted. And thus, though each separate branch 
is liable to error, yet all together as a Catholic body 
they would preserve the truth, just as nature has 
formed different lenses in the eye in order to transmit 
the light ; and as the aberrations of the planets are 
corrected by their mutual influences, so that while 
no one goes wholly right, the whole system does not 
go wrong ; and as human art puts together a variety 
of metals of different degrees of expansion, in order 
to frame a machine which shall not expand at all. 
Each portion of the Church is under solemn obli- 
gations neither to add nor take away. Unlike a 
human invention, the truth which they hold from 
God cannot be amended or enlarged. It may be 
illustrated, applied, developed, enforced, but nothing 
more. The Church is to witness and keep what has 
been committed to it. And this is enough. And it 
must hold up the truth before the world at all risks; 
not trusting to any power but God to write it on the 
heart; and leaving every thing to Him: so that no 
temptation is held out to exaggerate, or suppress, or 



CII. V.] OF PRESERVING TRUTH. 51 

modify the message which it delivers, with the 
view of alluring men. Popery (remember, I en- 
treat you, the difference between Catholicism and 
Popery) — Popery first broke up this beautiful sys- 
tem, by merging all the separate channels for con- 
veying the truth into one — by converting the 
federal union of independent bishops, acting to- 
gether as a council, into one monarchy in the 
person of the pope — by claiming for that pope an 
extravagant authority over the civil arm ; so that 
with the acquisition of temporal wealth and power, 
religion became corrupted — by assuming a right 
in successive generations to add to the body of 
truth received from the Apostles ; — and lastly, by 
shutting up the Bible. For the Bible is another 
important feature in this contrivance for the un- 
broken transmission of truths, just as written laws 
guard judges against wrong decisions — as written 
instructions limit, confirm,' and explain an oral 
message — as written history is a support to the 
ordinary testimony of mankind to traditional facts. 
It would seem that in the first of God's revelations 
to Adam there was a Church, or society of men, 
appointed to convey the truth from age to age ; 
but without any written word. In the next, de- 
livered to the Jews, there was both a society and 
a written word ; but the society was not Catholic. 
It was confined to one nation and country; and 
when the Jews went astray, the light became lost ; 
until, in the later period of their history, some ap- 
proach was made to a Catholic Church by the dis- 
persion of the Jews over the world, and the forma- 
tion of numerous independent communities, each 
with their own synagogue and teachers, in a variety 
of places. Then came the Catholic Church, with 
its written word likewise. And thus, notwithstand- 
ing the usurpation of Popery, and the still worse 



52 CATHOLIC CHURCH A MEANS, &C. 

errors of modern Dissent, which would blot out the 
testimony of the Church from the plan, as Popery 
blotted out its Catholic character and the written 
Word, and would thus leave every man with his own 
judgment alone to guide him in interpreting, or 
rather misinterpreting, the Bible — notwithstanding 
this, the great truths of the Gospel have been 
handed down to our own time unimpaired from 
their original integrity, as delivered to the Church 
by the apostles : 1800 years have passed, and still 
they are in our hands, and God's promise has been 
thus far fulfilled, that he would be with his Church 
unto the end of the world. And even now, in these 
evil days, when men are scoffing at truth, and ha- 
rassing God's ministers, and despising his word ; 
boasting each one his own conscience as the only rule 
of action, and his own understanding as the one judge 
of truth, until all action has become self-indulgence, 
and the very name of truth a farce, — it may be 
that, if Englishmen do their duty, God has yet a 
blessing in store for us. And the light which, of 
his great goodness, he has yet kept alive in the 
Church of this land, burning constantly, though 
dimly and in darkness, instead of being extin- 
guished, as men threaten, may be fed with oil from 
heaven, and once more break forth, and spread 
abroad — " a light to lighten the gentiles, and the 
glory of his people Israel." 



C1I.VI.] USE OF SCIENTIFIC ETHICS. 53 



CHAPTER VI. 

Why, then, you will ask, if we have all the ethical 
truth which we require to know contained in the sys- 
tem of the Church, and in the words of the Bible, 
why go to mere heathens — to Aristotle and Plato — 
to study inferior systems, only because they are 
thrown into a more technical and scientific form of 
demonstration ? And this question of the connexion 
between Christian and heathen ethics, or, as it is 
commonly termed, between faith and reason, is of 
the greatest importance. 

I answer, then, first, that although Almighty 
God has been pleased to place before us a whole 
system of moral truths in an irregular and unscien- 
tific form, scattered through the pages of the Bible, 
and delivered separately, and, as it were, by fits 
and starts, and only on the ground of authority, 
and as circumstances required, by the voice of the 
Church — so that the system as it comes before 
us, with precept and promise, history and prophecy, 
sacraments and preaching, poetry and narrative, 
ceremonies and liturgies, all confusedly mixed to- 
gether, scarcely seems a system at all ; and though 
there may be many reasons given why this should be 
the wisest plan, yet He by no means would exclude 
us from trying in some degree to arrange these 
dismembered fragments, to discover their mutual 
dependence, to trace general principles running 
throughout them, to classify them under heads, to 
put them into form and order. He has not pro- 
hibited this, when done reverently and modestly. 
F 2 



54 USE OF SCIENTIFIC ETHICS. 

First, because he has made it natural that we should 
wish to do so. An intelligent mind when told a 
multitude of facts, will always try thus to classify, 
and arrange, and account for them by their mu- 
tual connexion. It is the very office of human rea- 
son to work in this manner on the heterogeneous 
materials of knowledge : "I gave my heart," says 
the preacher, 1 " to seek and search out by wis- 
dom concerning all things that are done under hea- 
ven ; this sore travail hath God given to the sons 
of man to be exercised therewith." So it is that 
the physical philosopher, the geologist, the botanist, 
the chemist, observes the various facts of nature, 
deduces their general laws, and makes out a system 
from them. And God seems to have put Nature, 
and indeed all knowledge, before man in this dis- 
arranged, dislocated form, that man may amuse him- 
self with putting it in order, just as a child is amused 
with fitting together the pieces of a dissected map. 
If God, in giving us Revelation, had given it to us 
all perfect, and every part in place ; if he had not 
left a window in the palace of Truth unfinished, 
that man might have, as it were, a share in the 
work, we should have had nothing to do but to sit 
down and gaze ; and gazing, we should soon have 
been tired. But now there is opportunity for act- 
ing, for exercising thought, for participating in the 
work with God himself. We can indeed add no- 
thing ; and we dare not take away any thing. But 
we may transpose and fit together the different por- 
tions in an infinite variety of ways ; provided always 
we take care not to lose the smallest iota, or damage 
it by carelessness or presumption. 

But, secondly, not only is this task very de- 
lightful, and so to be considered a great luxury and 

1 Eccles.i. ]3 



CH. VI.] USE OF SCIENTIFIC ETHICS. 55 

indulgence vouchsafed us by Almighty God ; but to 
some persons it is highly necessary. In a manu- 
factory of watches, it is enough for the lower work- 
men to be told, one to make a wheel, another to 
polish a spring, a third to fasten a rivet, a fourth to 
insert a chain. Let each do well and zealously 
what he is bidden, and that is enough, without any 
information as to the general end in view, or the 
mode in which this spring is to act upon that wheel, 
or the fastening of the rivet is to be made subser- 
vient to the insertion of the chain. There is no 
necessity for any study of the art of watchmaking 
in the form of a science. But if the master-manu- 
facturer, instead of superintending every depart- 
ment immediately himself, thinks fit to employ others 
for that purpose, who are to distribute the work, 
arrange the labourers, examine the productions, — 
then these men must study the whole science of 
watchmaking. They must know first principles, 
take a comprehensive view of every part, see the 
dependence of each on each. Without such science, 
they must be incompetent to their office. Now this 
world is a vast manufactory of moral beings ; and 
all who have to govern men, whether legislators or 
clergy, or any one in a position of authority, are, 
if I may so speak, the head clerks and superintend- 
ents ; and of that superintendence they will have 
to render a most solemn account. And therefore 
they must learn, not only the articles of the Chris- 
tian faith, but how, and when, and to whom, and in 
what combinations, and under what circumstances, 
to apply them to others. They must learn them 
scientifically. 

But they are also the commanders of an army, 
placed at the head of that army, in the midst of 
enemies and dangers, by the hand of their King. 
And when those enemies are attacking them, the 



56 USE OF SCIENTIFIC ETHICS. 

common soldier indeed has nothing to do but to 
fire his gun, and stand firm at his post, and follow 
the word of command; but the officers must cast 
their eye over the whole field of action. They must 
know the strength of each position, — how they are 
supported by communication with each other — 
which column is to be pushed forward against this 
charge — which troop will best disperse that — how 
much the soldier will bear — how far the enemy 
can penetrate. Now this is the science of military 
tactics. Place before an untutored eye a plan of 
the battle of Waterloo, and it will appear a mass 
of confusion. But it was no mass of confusion to 
him who arranged it. And if he had not arranged 
it, where would England have been at this day? 
And where, humanly speaking, will the faith of the 
Church be, the doctrines which the Church is ap- 
pointed to guard and keep victorious, as on a field 
of battle, if those who have to lead the battle do not 
understand it, so far as God allows us to understand 
it, scientifically? 

And they are also the schoolmasters of the 
Church : their duty is to excite thought, and guide 
reasoning, and rear up a body of active intelligent 
minds, who shall fill their places when they are 
gone. This cannot be done without rousing in- 
quiry, and often doubt. It never can be done, 
unless the teacher has a thorough command over 
the truth which he would communicate. You, a 
pupil, may learn by rote ; but a master cannot 
teach by rote ; nor can he answer questions by 
rote ; nor can he always refuse to answer, without 
stifling the desire of knowledge, which he wishes 
properly to encourage, nor in many cases without 
exciting in the pupil either suspicion or contempt. 
For this purpose, therefore, he must again study 
the Ethics of Christianity scientifically. 



CH. VI.] USE OF SCIENTIFIC ETHICS. 57 

Once more, without any reference to usefulness 
or pleasure, knowledge is in itself a good. To see 
clearly through a mist of difficulties — to trace unity 
in a multitude of operations — to obtain permanent 
universal principles for the regulation of thought 
— to contemplate order instead of disorder (and 
this is the task of science,) — surely Almighty God 
would not have given to us all such longings and 
yearnings for this end, as for the very perfection 
of our nature, had it been wrong itself, had it not 
been a great good, so long as, in pursuing it, we 
rigidly guard against violating his express com- 
mands. He has placed us within the palace of 
Truth, of which he himself has laid the foundations, 
fixed the walls, prescribed the form in his own direct 
revelations. He has set teachers and witnesses over 
us to point out these foundations, to warn us against 
disturbing a single brick or tile which he himself has 
fixed. But when we obey their voice, and reve- 
rently confine ourselves to his will, he does not 
prohibit us, as Origen remarks, 1 from wandering 
about through all the apartments of that vast build- 
ing, penetrating from room to room, fitting keys to 
each lock, opening the hidden passages, tracing out 
the whole plan, and acquiescing with delight and 
exultation in the sight of its wisdom, harmony, and 
proportion. Till this is discovered, the human mind 
cannot rest. There is a chain upon its hands, a 
mote before its eye, a confused murmur in its ear, 
a disturbed obscurity and doubt, like the anxiety 
of a perplexed dream. " Clear away this mist from 
my eyes," was the prayer of Ajax. 2 " Give light, 
and in light destroy me" — h S\ <$£u km oXso-a-ov. 
And we also may pray for light. And God will not 
destroy us, if we are content with the light that he 

1 Philocal. c. 2. 2 Homer. 



58 USE OF HEATHEN ETHICS. 

vouchsafes, and "will not kindle a fire, and compass 
ourselves about with sparks, and walk in the light 
of our fire, and in the sparks that we have kindled:" 
knowing the threatening of God, " This shall ye 
have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow." 1 

And now we may come to the chief use of hea- 
then ethics. To study a subject scientifically, which 
is not already scientifically arranged, is a difficult and 
hazardous process. Men must deal boldly with facts ; 
they must risk hypotheses ; they must sound and 
explore every principle, — just as a man, informing 
himself of the labyrinth of an ancient building, 
must force his way through passages, and try locks, 
and, in a certain degree, deal with it rudely, as 
one having power over it. But if the house be a 
consecrated building, the very stones precious, the 
smallest portions to be guarded against mutilation 
and displacement, even against the stain of an un- 
washed hand, surely it were not wise to expose it 
to such irreverent observations. When a painter 
sits down to take the portrait of a dear friend, or 
an illustrious character, he must understand the 
anatomy of the human body, the order of its bones, 
the play of its muscles, the whole science of the 
human frame. But he must not gain this by dis- 
secting the person whom he paints. And yet he 
must gain it somewhere. Would it not be a happy 
thing, if he could find some viler human body, con- 
taining the same organs generally, and exhibiting 
the same outline carefully defined, in which he 
might grope about, and scrutinise each fibre, with- 
out fear of irreverence or injury? Would it not 
be well to teach the knowledge of a glorious palace, 
by turning the curious eye and adventurous foot 
into a meaner building like it, where they might 

i Isa. 1. 11. 



CLE. VI.] GREEK ETHICS. 59 

wonder without doing harm, and practise the art 
of discovery as boldly and adventurously as they 
choose, and sharpen their intellectual faculties, and 
learn the truth, but innocently and safely? This, 
then, is the great value of the Greek philosophy. 
It is the anatomical preparation — with all the fibres, 
muscles, and veins, drawn out and injected — of 
that ethical system, which in Christianity comes 
before us as a living and breathing form ; its me- 
chanism covered with a veil, glowing with life and 
action; its eye, its hand, its limbs, its head, all 
visible — but the chords by which they are moved 
buried out of sight. 

And as men, who would study to perfection the 
human form, seek for it in its highest models — as 
they reject a specimen where limbs are deficient 
and organs indistinct (except indeed as a monstro- 
city), — so those who know any thing of ethical 
science will study it in the works of the two great- 
est philosophers that ever lived, Plato and Aristotle. 
Modern systems are but fragments ; or they are 
deficient in essential parts ; or they are monstrous, 
from the disproportioned development of some par- 
ticular organ. The Greeks are not perfect ; but 
they are as near to perfection as human reason has 
ever approached. 

And there is another point of view in which the 
ethics of heathenism, and of human philosophy 
generally, will often strike your mind, but in which 
you will require a caution. You will see in them 
the human mind struggling by itself to attain its 
perfection — uttering faint cries like an infant, to 
signify wants which it cannot express — yearning 
for some light to fall on it, some hand to guide 
it — wandering now into the wildest errors, now 
reaching grand truths, and now arriving, by the 
use of reason, at paradoxes and mysteries ; and you 



60 ETHICS NOT TO BE USED AS EVIDENCES. 

will then turn to Christianity, and see the aid pro- 
mised to those struggles — the interpretation and 
the answer given to those cries — the light and the 
hand vouchsafed — the errors marked with warning 
landmarks — the truths brought home, by simple 
faith, to the child and the peasant — the paradoxes 
and mysteries set forth, not to the perplexity of 
reason, but to confirm and support it. No evidence 
to the truth of Christianity is so wonderful and so 
overpowering as the testimony of heathen philo- 
sophers. And yet, what do you want with such 
evidence? And is it not full of danger? And — what 
will come more home to your young and doubting 
intellect — is it not irrational to admit it? What 
would you say to a man who, in telling you some 
simple fact, about which there could be no reason- 
able doubt, should insist on proving it to you by an 
abundance of argument ? "I met Mr. So and So 
in the street." "Very well; I dare say you did." 
" But I assure you I did." " I have no reason to 
doubt it." " But do let me give you some proof." 
" I never knew you tell an untruth ; and you can 
have no object in deceiving, and I none in disbe- 
lieving you; pray, spare me." "But I must shew 
you the internal probability, how likely it was that 
I should meet him." " I am quite content with 
your word." "I wish you would not trust my 
word; I do wish you would look to the evidence." 
" Why, is not your own word sufficient evidence ?" 
" No ; as a rational being, you ought not to listen 
to me ; you ought to look to your own understand- 
ing." "What, on a matter of fact?" "Yes; on 
every thing." 

This is the dialogue which has been passing 
now for many years between the Church of Christ 
and the young whom it has received into its fold. 
Add to it, that the matter in question is one of the 



CH. VI.] ETHICS NOT TO BE USED AS EVIDENCES. 61 

deepest importance : in which infinite good must 
follow from believing, and no harm ; and infinite 
harm from disbelieving, and no good. Add to it, 
that the very office of the Church is to educate and 
govern : and that the very first thing required for 
this purpose is, that the pupil should put implicit 
confidence in the truth of the teacher ; and that the 
teacher should never permit his word to be dis- 
puted, or his character for veracity slighted. Add 
that She is the messenger of God, armed with His 
authority and name. Add that the reason to which 
She appeals, in preference to her own voice, is the 
judgment of an ignorant fallible individual. Add 
that in no other branch of knowledge does man 
permit a demand for evidence, except from a supe- 
rior. Add that, to distrust man's word is of all 
insults the most offensive, and one which the law 
of human pride cannot wipe out, except with blood. 
Add that this very evidence on which the poor, 
weak, self-distrusting mind is thus cruelly thrown, 
rests, and must rest ultimately, on the same basis 
of historical testimony, which by the appeal is set 
at nought. Add, lastly, not as if it ought to come 
last, but because an unbelieving age will not listen 
to positive law till it has consulted expediency and 
reason, that God himself has commanded us to believe 
His voice and the voice of His messengers. Think of 
all these things, and then you will see why I warn 
you against looking to the philosophy of Christian 
morality, brought out though it be into fullest light 
by the darkness of antecedent heathenism, as an 
evidence of the truth of Christianity. You do not 
want it. You have already two good legs, why 
insist on fastening on a third, and that a wooden one ? 
You may indeed use it as a walking-stick. It will 
strengthen you when weak ; may save you at times 
from a fall ; will enable you to use your own limbs 

G 



62 ETHICS NOT TO BE USED AS EVIDENCES. 

with more energy and freedom ; and you may drive 
off dogs with it, and beat down brambles that 
entangle you ; and sound the path, when you are 
walking where others have not walked before ; and 
amuse yourself with it as with a companion. But if 
you lean on it wholly, it will break and pierce your 
hand. It is full of flaws. It never was intended to 
bear the weight of your faith, which nothing can 
support but the pillar of the Catholic Church. You 
put confidence in a friend's character. A man brings 
forward a new proof of its goodness. You may 
delight in hearing it — contemplating it — not as an 
evidence, scarcely as a confirmation, for no one 
requires proof of that which he believes already ; 
but it is a new portraiture, an additional instance, 
a fresh phenomenon ; and it gratifies you, as a phi- 
losopher is gratified by tracing an indisputable prin- 
ciple in an infinite variety of forms. But tell your 
friend that you trust him, not because of his word, 
but because your reason is convinced by the plausi- 
bility of his story, and what becomes of your friend- 
ship? And accept the statements of the Church 
of Christ, not on its voice, but on the internal evi- 
dence of their correctness, and what becomes of 
your love, and respect, and allegiance, and all the 
other moral affections which a poor, miserable, blind 
child owes to a great, good, and glorious body — 
the blessing of the world — and the ambassador and 
more than ambassador of God — affections which the 
Bible sums up in the one word, Faith — without 
which, what is man ? 



CH. VII.] RULES l«01i THE STUDY OF ETHICS. 63 



CHAPTER VII. 

And now I have suggested to you two great truths, 
which must be laid as the foundation of the study 
of Ethics : — first, that in prosecuting that study you 
must take the Catholic Church as your guide ; se- 
condly, that you must also borrow the assistance of 
the great heathen writers of antiquity. 

But before we pass from this point, let me bring 
out more distinctly certain other precepts involved 
in these, of which, till you become more deeply ac- 
quainted with the philosophical disputes of the day, 
you will not see all the importance, but which, be 
assured, you will require thoroughly to understand, 
and to apply them in a variety of ways. For Ethics, 
remember, is the science of the mind of man ; and 
the mind of man is the agent to which all sublunary 
moral movement, not generated mechanically or by 
a miraculous power, must be traced; and a false 
bias given to it will penetrate into all its operations ; 
and the risk of such a bias at present exists, and 
must be studiously avoided. 

When, then, you are placed down before the 
collection of ethical facts which history, biography, 
daily life, the creations of art, the records of our 
own consciousness, present to us, — just as the earth 
in its mines, and strata, and landslips, and fossils, 
exhibits its collection of geological facts ; and when 
by the side of these, yet lying unarranged and scat- 
tered, you find also a variety of distinct theories 
marshalled under separate leaders, — you have the 
choice of proceeding in your study in one of the three 
following ways. You may become either a Ration- 



64 RATIONALISM. 

alist, an Eclectic, or a Syncretist. The names may 
sound strange, and, at first, unintelligible ; but the 
principles implied by them are very widely spread ; 
and you cannot study ethics without becoming ac- 
quainted with them. Read German works, and you 
will be tempted to Rationalism ; French works, and 
they encourage Eclecticism; English works, or rather 
(for we have few works in this country on the sub- 
ject, except our new scheme of legislation and edu- 
cation) look at the daily acts of our government, 
and you will see the workings of Syncretism. What 
they severally are, I now propose to shew. 

First, then ; you may resolve on forming a new 
theory of your own. On this I have touched al- 
ready. You say to yourself, " I have reason. Rea- 
son was given me to be exerted. What is the use 
of it, if I am not to search out truth ? I will be- 
come an independent inquirer, an original thinker. 
Truth, not the opinion of others, is to be my 
object and rule." So said Locke ; so said Rous- 
seau; so says Mr. Owen; so says every leader of 
error that ever founded a pernicious system, either 
in morals or religion. They are all ardent admirers of 
Truth. And, be assured, the moment a man pro- 
fesses this earnest enthusiasm for truth, you have 
reason to distrust him. There can scarcely be a 
surer sign that his theory will prove a lie. It is a 
strange paradox, is it not ? And yet let us see if it is 
false. Truth — and here lies the fallacy — has two 
distinct meanings. In one sense, truth is the great 
object of life, the basis of morals, the end of study, 
the law supreme over thought, and action, and affec- 
tion — the fountain of all good things lying deep 
under the throne of God, and flowing thence into 
the heart of man. In the other sense, it is a fancy, 
a dream, an ignis fatuus, a mere earthly shadow, 
tempting us at every step to folly, and always to be 



i II. VII.] AMBIGUITY OF THE WOKD TRUTH. 65 

suspected of evil. The Author of all Evil never 
invented a more ingenious device for snaring man 
and leading him blindfold into ruin, and sowing dis- 
cord and violence in the world, and overturning its 
foundations, than this double sense of the word 
Truth. 

In the one sense, then, Truth means the eternal, 
unchangeable, infinite, self-existing, unconditioned 
nature of almighty God, from whom all created 
things proceed, — to whom they are all to be refer- 
red, — by whom they are all to be judged ; whose 
perfections of goodness are the law of His will, and 
His will the wielder of all power, and His power the 
Lord of all things. What seems right to Him is 
right, absolutely and eternally ; what seems good is 
good ; what seems evil is evil. It is all true ; that 
is, it accords with his law, and it can never be 
changed. And to know this truth is to know God 
— to know his commands, his promises, his threat- 
enings, — what he loves, what he hates, what he pro- 
poses to do, what he has done. 

But truth also means accordance with the fan- 
cies of individual men. Each man carries within 
him certain, as he imagines, standard principles. He 
forms a theory, or rather nature forms one for him, 
as soon as he opens his eyes ; he takes it untried and 
unqualified upon a single experience. Does the fire 
burn him to-day : Instantly, by the process of asso- 
ciation, which he does not make himself, he is pre- 
pared the next time he sees fire to anticipate burn- 
ing. As a horse frightened at a particular spot, the 
next time he passes by it he starts again. Is a man 
amiable in one point r we believe him an angel in 
all. Is he unkind or vicious ? he is called a demon. 
And of these hasty generalisations, whether or not 
they have been subjected, as God intended they 
should be. to subsequent experiment, we make the 
g 2 



66 RESPONSIBILITY OF OPINIONS. 

rule of our belief. All facts we try by them ; what 
agrees with them we pronounce true ; what disa- 
grees, we say is false. And as we cannot help per- 
ceiving the agreement or disagreement when the two 
things — that is, our own general principle and the 
particular fact — are brought together ; or, in the 
logical language, as the conclusion follows neces- 
sarily when the premises are assumed, — hence men 
have been found to argue that our opinions are no 
more in our power, no more subject to moral re- 
sponsibility or righteous punishment, than our sen- 
sations of heat when fire is near, or the perception 
that white is not black, if both colours are brought 
before the eye. And our opinions in this sense are 
not in our own power. We cannot help perceiving 
similarity between things similar, and discrepancy 
between things discrepant. And if we believe our 
principles to be true, we cannot help believing all 
things contained in them to be true likewise ; and 
all things which contradict them to be false. But 
there are three things which we can help ; and it is 
for the neglect of these that we are morally culpable, 
and shall be morally punished. 

We can help trusting implicitly to those hasty 
generalisations which we make from partial careless 
experiences, and which nature herself compels us to 
distrust, by compelling us to modify or abridge them 
every moment. Look at any science — the science 
of geology, for instance ; see how it began, like every 
other human science, with a general theory rapidly 
evolved from some narrow observation. A most 
distinguished geologist was once laying down his 
theory of the science to a hearer who, unhappily, 
had a good memory. — " The earth is formed in this 
way." " Sir, you did not think so in 1821," was the 
suggestion. " The sea originally lay here." " This was 
not your theory in 1824," was the hint. "Animals 



CH. VII.] RESPONSIBILITY OF OPINIONS. 67 

were created in this order." "I think you mentioned 
another in a work of 1830." " Coal is a deposit from 
such and such causes." " Yes ; but you said otherwise 
in 1834." And scarcely a principle was laid down 
which had not been differently expressed at some 
former period. And no blame was to be attached to 
the person who thus held different views at different 
times. For we must form theories of general prin- 
ciples, even on a single experience, as soon as we 
begin to think ; and we must vary and qualify them 
subsequently by further experiment. But if without 
such experiments, we will hold them positively, and 
lay them down dogmatically, and declare every thing 
false which does not coincide with them, then we 
are morally guilty, and we shall morally be punished. 
It is at least imprudence ; more than this, it is arro- 
gance and folly. 

But add another consideration. Let us thus 
bigotedly adhere to our own crude generalisations, in 
the face of, and in direct opposition to, other gene- 
ral principles, put before us by parents, by friends, 
by the State, by antiquity, by learning, by goodness, 
by piety, in books, and buildings, and solemn rites, 
and vast institutions, and methodised systems — prin- 
ciples covered, as Plato says, with the hoar of 1800 
years, — let them be uttered in a voice of serious, 
affectionate warning, at stated times, by appointed 
persons, when our heart is yet tender, and our ears, 
unstupified by the din of the world, — let the truth 
stand before us in the form of an old and venerable 
prophet, 7ra,\a,iQccTo<; h SpoTo7<; yspwv \6yog, J — and 
then let us cast it off in contempt, and follow the 
thought of our own heart ; — and beside the intellec- 
tual folly, there is added the clear moral guilt of 
irreverence, ingratitude, insensibility to shame, of 

1 ^Eschyl. Agam. 727. 



b« RESPONSIBILITY OF OPINIONS. 

stubbornness, and disobedience, not only to man, 
but to God, by whom human authority was placed 
oyer us. 

Or take two other points of view in which error 
is obviously criminal. A man holds a general prin- 
ciple — for instance, the duty of benevolence — holds 
it perhaps rightly on authority ; and there comes 
another principle, the principle of severe justice, 
which hastily he rejects as incompatible with the 
former, and pronounces it to be false. Now is he 
sure that it is incompatible ? It seems contradic- 
tory. Is it really contradictory? Has he tried to 
hold them both ; to act upon them both, as mutual 
checks upon each other ? Is he willing to carry out 
his principle of faith so far as to trust legitimate 
authority, when it puts before him gravely and obvi- 
ously things which to him seem inconsistencies ? Or, 
will he trust it only when it tells him what he can 
understand ; that is, will he trust himself, and him- 
self only? Remember (and you cannot receive a 
more important axiom of reason,) that nearly all — we 
might say all (for where are the exceptions ?) — that 
nearly all true systems rest upon at least two prin- 
ciples — and these two seemingly opposed to each 
other — not upon one. The moment a writer or a 
teacher professes to reduce every thing to one prin- 
ciple, be assured he is on the point of leading you 
astray. He cannot understand the human mind, 
which is constructed on opposite tendencies, nor 
the plans which only can harmonise them. And the 
moment you detect in a system, bearing on it in 
other respects a trustworthy character, an appear- 
ance of inconsistencies, held, nevertheless, decidedly, 
and put forward prominently, the presumption is in 
favour of its truth. Let the axiom be suggested 
now. It will be for us, in another place, to illus- 
trate it with more particular reference to the history 



CH. VII.] RESPONSIBILITY OF OPINIONS. 69 

of ethics. This, then — this refusal to try the pos- 
sibility of practically holding together declarations 
not necessarily repugnant, but both supported by 
authority, is another moral fault. It is the cause of 
nearly all ethical errors, of all heresies and schisms; 
and for it, and for its consequences, we are morally 
responsible. 

Once more : our error may arise from a sin of 
carelessness. Our general principles may be right ; 
but we may reject a particular fact, or state wrongly 
our minor premiss, from not having accurately exa- 
mined it. We may believe in the conjoined virtue 
of justice and benevolence, and a particular action 
may be produced which seems to violate the law, 
and which therefore we pronounce wrong. Are we 
sure that we understand the action ? Have we col- 
lected all its circumstances, investigated all its de- 
tails ? You see a man cutting off another's head ; 
you pronounce it murder, and you are filled with 
indignation. You see another putting his hand into 
his neighbour's pocket and pulling out a purse; you 
call it stealing ; you rightly abominate stealing, and 
you summon the police. But the man who is cut- 
ting off the head may be an executioner, and the 
man who is pulling out the purse may be a police- 
man himself examining the pocket of a thief. Until 
you have thoroughly traced out all the circumstances 
of the fact, you have no right to bring it under your 
general principle. Neglecting to do this is careless- 
ness ; and carelessness, by the first laws of morals, 
is a punishable offence. 

Why have I gone into this question ? Because 
I wish to point out to you the many chances there 
are of error, if you will persist in walking by " the 
sight of your own eyes," and "trusting to your own 
understanding ;" the almost certainty that you will 
fall into them ; the absolute certainty that, if you 



70 RATIONALISM. 

fall, you will also be punished, and deserve to be 
punished. Will you, then, attempt to take the first 
course suggested to you, when you stand before the 
phenomena of morals, and will you strike out a sys- 
tem for yourself? You have before you a multi- 
tude of moral facts. Externally, you have the 
records of history ; the lives of nations and indivi- 
duals ; observations of the manners, actions, tastes, 
studies, trades, and professions of men ; their amuse- 
ments ; their works of art and fiction ; their maxims ; 
their laws. All of these may teach us what the 
mind of man is, and longs to be, because from the 
mind of man they originally flow : the tree may be 
known by its fruits. Internally, again you have 
the facts of your own consciousness and your own 
acts, to interpret the acts of others. You have feel- 
ings, and desires, and laws of reasoning. Now will 
you collect all these — (it is a plan very often sug- 
gested ; and by the Scotch school of metaphysics it 
was laid down as the basis of the study, and followed 
out, till they had stripped moral science of almost 
every line and feature which denoted a heavenly ori- 
gin) — will you try to collect all these, and set to work 
to frame a science for yourself, on the principle of 
the Baconian induction, or rather, what ignorant men 
will call the Baconian induction, — the principle of de- 
ducing general laws from the contemplation of par- 
ticular experiments ? Let us try the plan in some 
other science. You wish to teach a child chemistry, 
the general laws of chemistry. You wish to inspire 
him with an ardent desire for truth, that he may be 
an independent original thinker, not bound down 
slavishly and cowardly to the yoke of authority; 
nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. Now 
then, construct for him a laboratory; provide re- 
torts, furnaces, acids, and alkalis ; a little oil of 
vitriol here, a quantity of sulphur there ; hydrogen 



CH. VII.] RATIONALISM. 71 

gas in this bottle, oxygen gas in that ; here some 
prussic acid, there a plate of arsenic. Add a bar- 
rel or two of gunpowder, and plenty of brimstone 
matches. All, remember, admirable things, per- 
fectly safe, and infinitely useful, when rightly put 
together and judiciously employed ; just as the laws 
of our appetites and desires are admirably good, 
when properly balanced against each other ; pru- 
dence against benevolence, obedience against free- 
dom, self- discipline against asceticism, humility 
against elevation of mind ; — but all alike full of 
poison, and liable to explosions, which rend not 
only the experimenter but society, if an ignorant 
hand meddles with them wrongly. Put down in 
the midst of them the little original independent 
thinker, and leave him to himself; or rather, let 
me beg of you to remain with him in the house, 
and only abstain from interfering with his proceed- 
ings, lest you mar his originality of thought. 

Let us take a less formidable instance, where 
not the poisoning of a child, or the blowing up of 
a town, but only stupefaction, may ensue. You 
would teach a child astronomy ; a child, remember, 
because we must preserve the analogy, — and ethics 
must be taught to children, to mere babies, or they 
cannot be made good ; (and as far as goodness is 
concerned, who are not babies ?) and taught they 
are as much by the scolding of a nurse, or the hold- 
ing up of a parent's finger, as in after life by the 
laws and the gallows. Now, then, apply the prin- 
ciple of making him study facts for himself. There 
is the sun ; here is the earth ; there are the stars. 
Take him up to the top of the house, and bid him 
look. There are his facts ; he has nothing to do 
but to collect and arrange them. 

Dear little original independent thinker ! once 
more. Let us put you in the way of acquiring a 



72 RATIONALISM. 

knowledge of geology. There is a gravel-pit at the 
back of the house ; a chalk-pit on one side ; a river 
with good steep banks within a mile ; and coal-pits 
in abundance on all sides. Every morning a dumb 
nurse — dumb, for if she talks, you will be guided 
by her authority, and lose your liberty of judgment 
— shall take you out to these, put you down — for if 
she guides you to this place or that, she will bias 
your mind — and you shall run about by yourself, 
and collect your geological observations. 

Once more : you are grown up into a boy ; you 
are at school, and you must learn Greek; not by 
lexicons and grammars : forbid it, genius of liberty 
and of original thinking ! Lexicons and grammars 
are human systems ; they are the opinions of frail 
men like yourself. They would fill you with pre- 
judices, bias you with untried dogmas. No ! there 
are Homer, and Demosthenes, and ^Eschylus, and 
Aristophanes ; here you will find all the parts of 
language, prepositions and participles, nouns and 
genders, set before you ; you have only to observe, 
classify them, trace out their general principles, 
reduce them into a system of your own, nullius ad- 
dictus jurare in verba magistri. " But give me a 
tutor," you will say. A tutor ! why should you want 
a tutor ? "To tell me the meaning of these strange 
hieroglyphics." What! are the very first rudiments 
so hard ? cannot you even begin without some in- 
formation from without ? A tutor is a mere human 
being like yourself. His opinion is not half as good 
as that of lexicons and grammars, of which many 
tutors have approved already. He will fill you with 
prejudices, destroy your originality. You can have 
no tutor, unless I abandon my principle of leaving 
you to work out truth by yourself. 

One of the most characteristic features in this 
rationalistic folly, is the notion of what in France is 



CH. VII.] FALSE HOPES OF IMPROVEMENT. 73 

called Progress. If you will set aside all authority 
that has gone before you, it must be because you 
disdain it ; disdaining, you must hope for something 
better. And thus rationalists of all kinds are con- 
stantly looking forward to a millenium, in which 
their own new theory shall have overturned all 
errors, and established the reign of truth and hap- 
piness in the world. Now, whoever comes to you 
with this vision of a millenium, to be brought about 
in any other way than that shadowed out in pro- 
phecy, namely, by the sudden appearance of our 
Lord in the last age of a thoroughly depraved and 
exhausted generation, is to be suspected. Fcenum 
habet in cornu. Be assured no great discoveries 
are to be made in the science of Ethics. Human 
nature has been working before us under the influ- 
ence of Christianity for the last eighteen hundred 
years, and we have a very full detail of its proceed- 
ings. It was working without Christianity for two 
thousand years before, also under the observation 
of man. And if there is one fact more generally 
admitted than another, it is the uniformity of its 
operations. We have seen the whole of it from the 
first. Xew minerals may be discovered, and new 
gases ; unknown anomalies in vegetables, and mon- 
sters in zoology ; forms of stratification be unco- 
vered, to overturn theory after theory; and star 
after star be brought out in the heavens, to swell 
the catalogue of astronomy : but no such elasticity 
of expansion is visible in the science of human na- 
ture. Its facts have been explored long since ; its 
pomcerium fixed. Its greatest novelties have only 
been the exhumation of forgotten theories ; and its 
strangest phenomena are produced not by the addi- 
tion, but by the loss of some ordinary element ; as a 
mutilated animal may seem a prodigy to an ignorant 

H 



74 FALSE THEOEY OF CREATION. 

anatomist. Little, therefore, is left for rationalism 
to accomplish. 

But those who are thus looking forward are un- 
willing to look back ; and when they do, it is with 
a sneer of compassion, as if all behind them was 
darkness, while all before is light. Watch, there- 
fore, this feature also in rationalism. 

There is an atheistic philosophy, as opposed to 
our experience as it is irreconcilable with possi- 
bility, which would trace back all human knowledge 
to a state of entire ignorance, just as it would frame 
a world from the expansion of a point. Art and 
language, and science and society, as well as morals 
and religion, are thus supposed to have been col- 
lected by experience, and by experience alone. It 
forgets that without art preceding experience, life 
could not have been preserved to gain any experi- 
ence whatever ; that without language no language 
could be framed ; that without some general prin- 
ciples of reason, which make the foundation of sci- 
ence, science could never have arisen ; that instead 
of the individual preceding and forming society, 
society must have preceded and formed the indivi- 
dual, or the child could never have lived to become 
a man ; that moral laws could not have been laid 
down except by virtuous men, and men do not be- 
come virtuous without a moral law to guide them 
before they are good themselves ; and that religion 
could not have been wrought out by the discoveries 
of physical science and natural reason — that it could 
not, in a word, have sprung from what is called 
natural theology, because neither science nor reason 
could be developed except in an advanced stage of 
society ; and society itself could not be held toge- 
ther without the bond of an antecedent religion. 
Christianity tells a different tale. It declares that 



CH. VI 1.] FALSE VIEW OF REASON. 75 

in art and language, and science and society, as 
well as in morals and religion, some portion of 
knowledge, some sketch and outline of truth, suffi- 
cient to guide man at the first, however imperfectly 
developed, was given him at the beginning from a 
source external to himself, from revelation ; that he 
was not left to elicit light out of entire darkness ; to 
accumulate knowledge without any capital to com- 
mence with ; to grow without roots ; to walk without 
the power of motion ; to climb from the very bottom 
of the hill without any aid or direction. Something 
was given him from the first, that he might after- 
wards gain more for himself. The seed containing 
the tree was planted in him, and the tree was to be 
afterwards thrown out. He was placed half-way 
up the ascent, and from thence was to struggle to 
the top. Whoever does not look back with rever- 
ence to the past, has no right to look forward with 
hope for the future; and a wise man who really 
understands the history of man, will regard the 
progress of society, both intellectually and civilly, 
as a decline rather than an advance. 

Lastly, the rationalist makes no distinction be- 
tween the reason of the child and of the man. He 
confounds human reason in the abstract with the 
reason of the individual ; he thinks it perfect alike in 
every one. He assigns to it, therefore, the right to 
judge of truth in all things, and at all times, and, 
struggle as he may to escape, he must be compelled 
either to allow that the child is born with as much 
power of discernment as the adult, or to fix, as 
Locke tries to do, some period when these powers are 
developed — say at the age of twenty-one. He must 
either treat an infant as a sage, or declare that at some 
fixed period his mind suddenly expands, and he is re- 
leased from all his obligations to listen to men wiser 
than himself — this is the dilemma of rationalism. 



76 PEOPHECY OF RATIONALISM. 

Great God ! what is to become of an age and a 
nation in which these follies are held; not only held, 
but laid down as the very foundations of education ? 
And men are taught not to listen to the voice of the 
wise, speaking to them the words of God ; and those 
are scoffed and mocked at who prophecy the end ; 
when truth shall be torn in fragments, and men's 
minds be shaken from their foundation ; and know- 
ledge will be sealed up ; and the power of vision 
will depart ; and the fear of God will perish, and his 
wisdom be distrusted ; and they whom we have 
taught to think scorn of the wise and the old, with 
the words of God in their mouth, lest they should 
fall under the dominion of men, will do the only 
thing that remains, and rather than have none to 
guide them, will fall down and worship fools. 

" Stay yourselves," says the prophet, speaking of 
these latter times, 1 " stay yourselves, and wonder ; 
cry ye out, and cry : they are drunken, but not 
with wine ; they stagger, but not with strong drink. 
For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit 
of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes ; the pro- 
phets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. 
And the vision of all is become unto you as the 
words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver 
to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray 
thee : and he saith, I cannot ; for it is sealed : and 
the book is delivered to him that is not learned, 
saying, Read this, I pray thee : and he saith, I am 
not learned. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch 
as this people draw near me with their mouth, and 
with their lips do honour me, but have removed 
their heart far from me, and their fear toward me 
is taught by the precept of men : therefore, behold, 
I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this 
people, even a marvellous work and a wonder ; for 
1 Isaiah xxix. 9-15. 



CII. VII.] PBOPHECY OF RATIONALISM. 77 

tlie wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the 
understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. 
Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their coun- 
sel*' — or, as the marginal reference would interpret 
it, " that take counsel, but not of me ; and that 
cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that 
they may add sin to sin ; that walk to go down 
into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth ; to 
strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, 
and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!" 1 "Which 
say to the seers, see not; and to the prophets, 
Prophesy not unto us right things ; speak unto us 
smooth things, prophecy deceits : get you out of the 
way, turn aside out of tho path, cause the Holy 
One of Israel to cease from before us." 2 " Surely 
your turning of things upside down shall be es- 
teemed as the potter's clay : for shall the work say 
of him that made it, He made me not? or shall 
the thing framed say of him that framed it, He 
had no understanding?" 3 He knew not, that is, 
what is in man; and we will go elsewhere to 
learn it. 

1 Is. xxx. 1, 2. It may assist the application, to remember, 
that Egypt was generally employed by early Christian Fathers 
as a type of " heathen learning" in its relation to theology. 

2 Ver. 10. 11. 3 ck xxis# 16> 



Ji 2 



78 ECLECTICISM. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

You cannot, therefore, in the study of Ethics, be- 
come an original thinker — God forbid ! — or, in 
other words, a rationalist, such as the German phi- 
losophers would wish you to be, forming your own 
system by yourself, and trying every thing by it. 

But you have another choice. You may be- 
come an Eclectic, as it is called; and to Eclecticism 
you will be kindly invited, if you go to France. 
What Eclecticism is, you may not know ; but it is a 
thing easily learned, and easily practised. And it 
is a very well contrived disguise, a sort of domino, 
for those who do not like to profess that they go 
wholly by themselves, and yet are resolved to go in 
no respect by others. 

When, then, you are placed before the various 
systems of ethics, with their respective teachers at 
their head ; instead of coolly dismissing them all as 
perfectly useless you may greet them all most re- 
spectfully and affectionately; you may pass them 
in review before you, Christianity and all ; admiring 
this, praising that, paying some compliment to each; 
regretting only that no one system is so perfect but 
that it may be made more perfect by an addition 
from some other. You will, therefore, refuse to fol- 
low any one ; but pick from each its peculiar excel- 
lence, 'iKhiyuv; cull out what pleases you; and 
make a perfect system of your own ; as Apelles is 
falsely said to have painted his Venus ; who, painted 
on any such principle, must have been not a Venus, 
but a monster, So modern architects propose to 



CH. VIII.] ANOTHER FORM OF RATIONALISM. 79 

build a perfect cathedral, by taking the spire of 
Salisbury, and the nave of Canterbury, and the 
choir of York, and the cloisters of Gloucester, and 
the front of Peterborough, and the tombs of Win- 
chester, and to form them into — one monster. So 
a poet might plan a poem, to include the solemnity 
of Milton, and the humour of Shakspear ; the terse 
diction of Pope, and the rude Doric of Chaucer; 
epigrams from Martial, and lyrics from Pindar ; and 
the elegant witticisms of the last new novel, side by 
side with the awfulness of the warnings in the Bible. 
This is Eclecticism. 

And yet, you will ask, ought we not to aim at 
perfection? And is perfection to be found in any 
separate system ? Is it not the result of combina- 
tion — of a collection of parts ? Where is the evil 
of Eclecticism? That some evil principle is con- 
tained in it is evident ; but what is it ? 

In the first place, then, Eclecticism implies that 
you, the individual thinker, place yourself out of 
and above all other teachers and doctrines, and look 
down on them as a judge and critic ; and, therefore, 
proudly and contemptuously. To praise implies 
superiority. We never praise the gods, says Aris- 
totle ; we wonder at and revere them. And to 
praise, instead of obeying, an ethical system, implies 
that we have within us some standard by which we 
measure it — a standard of more value than the 
thing measured by it, as every rule is more perfect 
than the line which it tries. But where does this 
standard come from ? If not taken from any other 
teacher, or body of teachers, it must come from 
ourselves, from our own notions and feelings. And 
hence Eclecticism is but another word for inde- 
pendence and Rationalism ; and in acting on it, men 
cull out what they like, reject what they dislike, 
assent to that which- seems right in their own eyes, 



80 GOOD ECLECTICISM. 

deny all that they cannot understand. Their own 
minds are their only rule. Give a man, indeed, one 
certain fixed body of doctrine, received from com- 
petent authority, bind him to one school, whatever it 
may be, and then he may become an eclectic of the 
rest without becoming a rationalist. And a Chris- 
tian, in submitting to the Church, may stand before 
all other systems of ethics as an eclectic; but with 
safety and wisdom. He may select in them all that 
is good, finding this doctrine more perfect in one, 
and that doctrine in another, but regulating his ap- 
proval not by his own private notions, but by the 
standard of the Church. And thus the early fathers 
called themselves eclectics, and boasted of the title. 
Justin Martyr, 1 St. Augustin, 2 St. Basil, 3 St. Je- 
rome, 4 Origen, 5 Theodoret, 6 Clement of Alexandria, 7 
Tertullian, 8 all recommended eclecticism in this sense, 
but with the strict reservation in the words of Ori- 
gen himself, •' that the preaching and doctrines of 
the Church, transmitted by the order of succes- 
sion from the apostles, and continuing unaltered 
to this time in the Church, be maintained inviolate ; 
that such only be deemed truth which in no respect 
is discordant with ecclesiastical and apostolical tra- 
dition." 9 

In Plato, in Aristotle, in the Stoics, in the Ori- 
ental sects, they distinguished what accorded with 

1 Apolog. II. p. 132. Thirlby edit. Apolog. 1. 

2 De Civit. Dei. lib. viii. c, 9, 10. 

3 Homil. 24. De legendis libris Gentilium ad adolescentes. 

4 Epist. 70 ad Magnum. 

5 Epist. ad Gregorium, Trepi apxSv, lib. i. 

6 Curat. Graec. Aff. lib. i. 7 Stromat. lib. v. 

8 Testimon. Animse, p. 8. 

9 uepl apx&v, lib. i. " Servetur vero ecclesiastica pra?di- 
catio per successionis ordinem ab apostolis tradita, et usque ad 
prsesens in ecclesiis permanens ; ilia sola credenda est Veritas, 
quae in nullo ab ecclesiastica et apostolica discordat tradi* 
tione." 



CH. VIII.] ECLECTICISM INCONSISTENT. 81 

the truths of the Gospel ; and standing as they 
did on the high ground of revelation, could look 
down on all human systems, praising this and cen- 
suring that, acting as their judges and critics, treat- 
ing them as inferiors, and measuring them by a 
standard of their own. And yet there was no pre- 
sumption or danger, since the standard which they 
used was not invented of themselves, but was the 
revelation of God. 

One fault, then, of eclecticism is, that it refers 
every thing at last to the judgment of the individual 
thinker. 

It has another, — that a system thus formed must 
always be full of inconsistencies. True it is that 
every work of nature consists of parts wrought into 
a whole. The body is made of limbs, the tree of 
branches and leaves, the human mind of many fa- 
culties and various capacities, the heavens of clus- 
ters of stars, society of families, families of groups 
of men, the Church of a distinction of orders. 
Without many parts there is no whole. But also 
nature has established one law for the formation of 
these wholes — a law w r hich eclecticism sets at nought. 
How is the body formed ? Not by bringing together 
legs, and arms, and heads, and rivetting them into 
one mass. It is developed from the embryo, in which 
all the outlines of the parts were originally included, 
and have only been drawn out and magnified by 
the growth of life. How is the tree produced ? Is 
it by hammering together boughs and trunks, tack- 
ing on leaves here, sewing on flowers there ? No, 
as botanists will tell you, the whole oak lies hid 
in the acorn, and is drawn out from that germ by 
light, and air, and the vitality which lies within it. 
So families spring from one first parent ; so nations 
from some one head, Even where violence has 
overturned and rooted up all original connexion 



82 LAW OF GROWTH. 

with a patriarchal monarchical authority, yet society 
never can begin to organise itself again, unless some 
one man takes the lead ; gathers round him followers 
who hang on him ; by them collects more distant de- 
pendents ; distributes his power through them ; be- 
comes to them as the acorn to the oak, as the embryo 
to the .man. So the old British constitution was deve- 
loped from the one germ of regal authority, not from 
independent conflicting prerogatives of people and 
king. So the holy Church, with all its multitudes of 
members, its generations upon generations, its vari- 
ous offices, its separate gifts, all sprang from one 
single Head. It was not an aggregate of individuals 
voluntarily combining together, as the Sophist Locke 
supposes. 1 It was gathered by the Spirit of God 
pervading human hearts, attracting to itself what- 
ever was congenial, swelling its own bulk, and 
spreading itself out into form and beauty by a power 
within itself. So, too, the doctrine of the Church. 
It lay hid all of it in the words of our Saviour, as 
they are delivered in the Gospel. It was drawn out 
and expanded more by the apostles in their preach- 
ing. It took a still more precise and developed form 
during the first three centuries : 2 but it was not 
picked up in fragments, and nailed together, from 
the relics of heathen philosophy, after the fancy of 
an individual man. Arid the same may be said of 
its discipline and polity. 

I dwell on this law of growth, not merely in 
illustration of the question before you, but because 
it is of vital importance in very many controversies 
of the present day, political, religious, and moral. 
And it never can be overlooked without fatal errors 
in reasoning, and still worse errors in practice. 

1 Letters on Toleration. 

2 See an eloquent passage in" Vincentius, Commonitorium 
adversus Haereses." 



CH. VIII.] LAW OF GROWTH. 83 

And Eclecticism does overlook it. And if it 
produces anything, it must produce a monster, with 
the neck of the horse supporting the head of a man, 
and the body of a woman ending in the tail of a fish. 1 

Give a comparative anatomist (I am alluding to 
a fact) the claw of an unknown animal, and he will 
and has been able to describe the whole skeleton 
before it has been seen. Shew an architect the 
moulding of a good Gothic building, and he can 
trace out its general plan. Put the fragment of a 
Grecian statue before a master sculptor, and he will 
tell you, by the position of a muscle, the attitude and 
intention of the whole figure. Why ? Because in 
every high and perfect work of art or nature there 
is one leading design, which flows into and animates 
each part. The most distant limbs are held toge- 
ther by some secret sympathy ; portions, between 
which a common eye cannot detect the slightest 
connexion, yet in some way are dependent on each 
other, because they are segments of a common plan, 
and spring from one fundamental idea. Why have 
all mammiferous animals seven vertebrae in the neck, 
and no more ? Why have ruminating animals cloven 
feet ? No one can tell ; and yet these parts are in 
some way so connected together, that they have 
never yet been found separated. 

But an eclectic, if he is to be really and truly 
an eclectic, can have no one common idea under 
which to arrange the fragments, which he pilfers 
from a variety of systems. If he has such a com- 
mon fundamental idea, then that idea is his own 
system, and he is a rationalist, not an eclectic. If 
he has none, then, according to the fancy of the 
moment, he will now take up one doctrine, now 
another, pick a little bit here, a little bit there — his 
taste varying with the hour ; mixing up not merely 
1 Horat. Ars. Poetic. 



84 TKTJTH MADE UP OF CONTRARIETIES. 

seeming opposites, which, after all, may be com- 
patible with each other, but really incoherent prin- 
ciples ; inculcating in one page a general rule, in 
another an act which violates it ; making, in one 
word, a monster. 

And before I pass from this point, let us think 
if this law of unity in the formation of a system — a 
law which cannot be violated without violating com- 
mon sense — does not also prove the necessity of 
being guided in our choice by Revelation, and there- 
fore still further pronounce against eclecticism. 
That we must be so guided is clear, -from a plain 
moral duty, whether we understand its value or 
not. God has placed teachers over us ; and if we 
refuse to listen to them, we are disobeying God. 
But when the duty is allowed, we may also delight 
in tracing how good and how useful is the act 
which it prescribes. 

Do you remember a very different principle, 
which was laid down before, that no true system 
ever was made to rest upon any one principle — 
that it must be built at least upon two ; that human 
nature was made up of opposite tendencies ; and that 
therefore the laws by which it is to be governed 
must be opposite also ? When a man has to walk 
upon a rope, with an inclination now to this side, 
now to that, his centre of gravity shifting every 
moment, it would be no good rule to give him only 
one contrary movement. He must have two. When 
he is falling to the left, he must be directed to throw 
himself to the right ; when he is falling to the right, 
he must throw himself back to the left. And thus 
he will keep himself in the middle ; not by one 
law or impulse, but by two contrary to each other. 
And so it is with our moral nature ; made up, as it 
is, of reason and passion, spirit and flesh, God and 
man. 



CH. VIII.] PLURALITY RECONCILED WITH UNITY. 85 

What, then, you will ask, must every true sys- 
tem be based on two principles ? And yet, as was 
said before, can no system be consistent or good, 
which does not flow from one ? Here is another 
paradox. How are we to explain the contradic- 
tion? I answer,* that both facts being true, both 
are to be held together, on the very principles 
which they assert. And there is one way, and one 
way only, in which here this great problem can be 
solved — the problem which meets us at every step, 
when penetrating into the mysteries of nature — of 
reconciling plurality with unity. No unity without 
plurality ; no plurality without unity. As here enun- 
ciated generally, the axiom may be unintelligible. 
But bear it in mind, apply it as you study, and you 
will soon comprehend it. Give you one teacher, and 
one only, in whom you have implicit confidence, 
and receive from him upon faith all that he tells 
you ; and here you have what you want — unity of 
source, for the system which you hold. Let that 
system contain the opposite laivs, and counteracting 
influences required by your moral nature ; and here 
you have the plurality of axioms, or principles. And 
that it is possible in this way, but in no other, to 
hold an ethical system adequate to the wants of our 
nature, is evident from facts. Here is a gardener 
giving directions to a workman, who knows nothing 
of the growth of plants : " Take this seed ; I wish to 
have a creeper twining round this building. Fasten 
some wires on the wall to support it, for it will 
be thus high. Now put the seed down into the 
ground." "What!'' the labourer might say, "bury 
the seed, when the plant is to be up there — put it- 
down, in order to make it grow up ?" But he 
would say no such thing. He might comprehend 
nothing of the mode in which these two opposite 
statements could be reconciled by reason, but he 
i 



86 PLURALITY RECONCILED WITH UNITY, 

would reconcile them — give them unity by faith. 
He would take the word of his master, fix the wires, 
and sow the seed ; and the plant would grow. Take 
the instance of an army. The enemy is to be de- 
feated. One column is ordered to move forward, 
another to move back. What, two contrary move- 
ments ? Ought not the soldiers to refuse until they 
are reconciled? They do not comprehend them; 
they think them paradoxical. Will they move? 
Yes, undoubtedly. Why? Because they have 
faith in their commander. They act through his 
understanding ; are satisfied that he should com- 
prehend, without comprehending themselves ; or, 
as Plato 1 says, " are willing to be wise by his wis- 
dom." But for this purpose there must be one 
commander, and one only. They must have unity 
in one point, in order to hold plurality in others. 
Let them have separate orders from separate men, 
and the ranks will fall to pieces. 

Faith, therefore, or entire confidence, in some 
one person, is a mode by which we can hold toge- 
ther those seemingly contrary principles which are 
necessary to every perfect system of ethics. To 
guide a horse there must be two reins ; but those 
two must be held by one hand. To walk, we must 
have two legs ; but both must be under the con- 
trol of one body. To act as a society, there must 
be many distinct individuals ; but they must act not 
each against the other, as if one principle of morals 
might presume to domineer over and extirpate the 
rest, but all in their several places, and all in sub- 
jection to some one governor, who holds the plan 
of the whole. 

But without faith in some one teacher, who gua- 
rantees the separate truth of these seeming contra- 
rieties, they cannot be held at all ; and for the folio w- 
1 Republic. 



CH. VIII.] UNITY THE LAW OF REASON. 87 

ing reason : — If we do not receive our doctrines from 
others, we must reason them out for ourselves. Now 
the essential, primary, never-varying law of human 
reason, is unity. Take the axiom as it stands, how- 
ever obscure it may sound, and apply it to facts. 
This is the mode of arriving at all knowledge. A 
chemist tells you that he put a piece of metal into 
a vessel of water, and the metal caught fire. Your 
reason is revolted. You do not understand it. 
Why r Because there is a discrepancy, a want of 
resemblance or unity between this fact, and your 
general notion that water extinguishes fire, instead 
of kindling it. How will the chemist bring your 
reason to receive the mystery. He will shew 
you that certain gases in the water have a certain 
affinity for certain elements in the metal — a fact 
which you may see in other experiments ; that in 
disengaging themselves they evolve heat — a fact 
which may also be shewn. And thus the pheno- 
menon of a metal burning in water will be reduced 
under your former knowledge ; it will become but 
one instance of a general law, which you knew be- 
fore, and you will not doubt 1 it, or feel otherwise 
than at one with it. A man, of whom you thought 
well, is charged with an offence. You disbelieve it. 
Why ? Because the act is inconsistent — is not at 
unity with his previous character. Shew that he 
had frequently done the same thing before, and you 
immediately cease to wonder. A botanist takes up 
a flower. Why is he perplexed and puzzled? Here 
are certain pistils connected with certain stamina — 
such leaves, such a stalk. He stands over it, knits 
his brows, pulls it to pieces, examines it dubiously, 
is uncomfortable, not satisfied in his reason; till 
what ? — till he can tell you under what known class 
it may be ranged ; that it agrees with, is one of a 
1 Remember the etymology of doubt, dubius, duo, "two." 



88 UNITY THE LAW OF EEASON. 

number of plants which already he knows to possess 
this common type. A rationalist takes up the Bible. 
He assumes that Almighty God is a being who 
wishes nothing but the enjoyment of his creatures, 
without any reference to their goodness ; and he 
finds Him described as commanding acts which seem 
harsh and destructive. These facts are not in har- 
mony, in unity with his pre- conceived opinion, and 
he rejects them ; and a Christian on the same prin- 
ciple, rejects the objection of the rationalist, because 
he finds facts in the Bible which militate against 
and contradict it. Take, again, the reason of the 
artist. Put a number of colours into the hand of a 
child, and he brushes them about his paper, black 
against white, red in yellow, purple in brown ; and 
you call him a silly child. Give the same colours 
to a painter, he arranges them on a plan, in order 
that no harsh contrasts may occur ; that all may be 
harmonised together. He gives them unity ; and 
you admire his reason. Scatter a number of pillars 
confusedly on the ground, you call them a ruin. 
Range them in one line, with one interval between 
each, one height to all, one form comprehending 
all, one line binding together the separate portions 
— and you create a Parthenon. Pick all the parts 
of a watch from each other, and they may seem to 
have been made by chance. Put them together, 
so as to obey one movement, tend to one end ; and 
a philosopher takes it at once as an evidence of the 
existence of reason. And these instances may be 
sufficient to give you some notion of the axiom, 
that unity is the law of reason ; that the greatest 
object and aim of the mere intellect of man is to 
reduce every thing to one — under one law, one 
system ; to give order to disorder ; to trace one 
plan in a variety of scattered acts ; to draw out an 
infinity of conclusions from the womb of one prin- 



CH. VIII.] DUALITY THE LAW OF CREATION. 89 

ciple. And this being the action, and necessary- 
action of human reason, it is evident that mere 
reason by itself never will frame a system built 
on more than one principle. And yet from one 
principle no perfect theory can be generated ; any 
more than a seed will grow without earth also in 
which to deposit it; or children spring from one 
parent only ; or vision be produced by the eye 
without light ; or man live by the vitality within, 
without food from without to nourish him ; or 
good moral habits be formed by acting in only one 
direction ; or geometrical conclusions be deduced 
from definitions without axioms ; or men teach well 
without books, or books without men ; or states be 
well governed either by kings without a Church, 
or by a Church without kings. All process and 
creation in nature is by the help of at least two 
principles. The reason of man by itself cannot work 
with two principles. The reason of man, therefore^ 
cannot generate a perfectly true system. And if 
a perfectly true system is to be acquired, it must 
be received from that perfect reason which can com- 
prehend all things. It must be received upon faith 
— from one authority, one God ; and we must act 
upon the different laws which He lays before us, 
whether by an act of understanding we can bring 
them into agreement or not. 

Such then are the inherent defects of an eclectic 
system. Therefore never profess to be an eclectic ; 
or trust to any who, like the French writers, Cousin, 
Guizot, and others, make a boast of reviving eclec- 
ticism in the present age. 1 It is a vain, presump- 
tuous, empty scheme ; which cannot be seriously 
formed without implying the abrogation of any 
authoritative revelation ; which places Christianity 
on a level with human theories ; which affects to be 
1 See Cousin's Cours de Philosophie. 
i2 



90 ECLECTICISM. 

wiser than any men who have gone before ; which 
is too conceited really to submit to others, and at 
the same time too cowardly to declare its entire de- 
pendence on itself: and the result of which must 
be, either a poor shallow speculation, wrought out 
from the brain of an individual who does not un- 
derstand the first laws of human nature ; or a mon- 
ster like the stuffed elephant on the stage, with a 
man in each leg, and each man with a separate will 
of his own ; and the moment it begins to move, it 
will come to the ground. 



CH. IX] SYCNCIiETISM. 91 



CHAPTER IX. 

Eclecticism, therefore, or the French philosophy 
of the day, being abandoned, together with the Ger- 
man principle of original thinking, is there no other 
form in which you may study the science of Ethics, 
with mischief to yourself, and damage to the cause 
of truth ? One other still remains. You may be- 
come a Syncretist. Here is another hard word; 
but the meaning of it is worth attending to ; for the 
age in general is becoming a syncretist, and in par- 
ticular the legislation of this country is now con- 
ducted on the syncretistic principle. Syncretism, 
then, is a mixing together of things which ought to 
be kept distinct. Not, like eclecticism, putting them 
together in separate portions, as layers of oil and 
water ; or as men may make a mermaid by sewing 
on the tail of a herring to the head of a monkey, 
without at all implying that a mermaid and a mon- 
key are the same thing ; but destroying all lines of 
separation, declaring that they are all one and the 
same. This principle of confusion Almighty God 
seems to hare denounced throughout with a pecu- 
liar malediction : — " Thou shalt not sow thy vine- 
yard with divers seeds : lest the fruit of thy seed 
which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vine- 
yard, be defiled. Thou shalt not plough with an 
ox and an ass together. Thou shalt not wear a 
garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen to- 
gether." 1 And again : " Be ye not unequally yoked 
1 Deut, xxii. 9. 



92 DENOUNCED IN THE BIBLE. 

together with unbelievers : for what fellowship hath 
righteousness with unrighteousness ? and what com- 
munion hath light with darkness ? and what concord 
hath Christ with Belial ? or what part hath he that 
believeth with an infidel ? and what agreement hath 
the temple of God with idols ? for ye are the temple 
of the living God ; as God hath said, I will dwell in 
them and walk in them ; and I will be their God, 
and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out 
from among them, and be ye separate, saith the 
Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will 
receive you." 1 Once more : "And when the Lord 
thy God shall deliver them [the people of Canaan] 
before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly 
destroy them ; thou shalt make no covenant with 
them, nor shew mercy unto them : neither shalt thou 
make marriages with them ; thy daughter thou shalt 
not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou 
take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy 
son from following me, that they may serve other 
gods ; so will the anger of the Lord be kindled 
against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus 
shall ye deal with them ; ye shall destroy their al- 
tars, and break down their images, and cut down 
their groves, and burn their graven images with 
fire. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord, 
thy God : the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be 
a special people unto himself, above all people that 
are upon the face of the earth." 2 When the Philis- 
tines brought the ark of God into the temple of 
Dagon, it was on the principle of syncretism. When 
the followers of Baal halted between two opinions, it 
was on the principle of syncretism. When Solomon 
built his altars to Ashtaroth, it was on the principle 
of syncretism. When the government of this coun- 
try would establish common schools, without dis- 
1 2 Cor. vi. 14-17. 2 Deut. vii, 2. 



CH. XI.] * OBJECT OF THE 8YNCKETIST. 93 

tinction of religious opinions, it is on the principle 
of syncretism ; or, in the words of Scripture, " con- 
fusion," which is abomination to the Lord. 

To prevent our supposing that this abomination 
consisted merely in the results, God, it might seem, 
especially prohibited it even in insignificant acts, as 
sowing seed and wearing a garment. Let us see 
what there is in it intrinsically abhorrent to right 
and truth, and to the moral nature of Him who is 
the law of right and truth : first having fixed pre- 
cisely the process which the syncretist pursues, and 
his motives for pursuing it. 

The object, then, of the syncretist may be one 
of two. In one case he may be anxious to find as 
large an amount of authority as possible for his own 
chosen code of opinions ; to trace them, therefore, 
every where, in every system. This was the Syn- 
cretism of the Neo-platonic school of Alexandria. 
Aristotle, Plato, the Stoics, all alike, they compelled 
to pay tribute and homage to their own doctrines. 
It is the most innocent form of syncretism, and to a 
certain extent will succeed ; because all systems that 
have sprung from the same human nature, or have 
been adapted to it, cannot vary universally in fun- 
damental points. Their differences will be rather of 
omission than of contradiction. 

In the other case, the motive of the syncretist 
is a dislike to ethical and theological polemics. 
Like Gallio, " he careth for none of these things." 
He looks down with contempt on combatants, 
who seem contending sometimes for mere words, 
sometimes for unpractical abstractions ; not unfre- 
quently with violence, always with a certain perti- 
nacity offensive to weak, and wearying to indolent 
minds. He summons the combatants before him ; 
rebukes them for their uncharitable quarrels ; assures 
them they are all in the right — that they all mean 



94 PROCESSES OF SYNCRETISM. 

one and the same thing, though without knowing it. 
The combatants stare, as well they may ; but the 
syncretist persists in his assertion. How will he 
prove it ? The modes of doing this are also two. 
One is, the obvious process of misinterpretation — 
turning, explaining, eliding, inserting, combining, 
or interpolating what is written, so as to make a 
writer say the very thing which he did not say. 
This is the favourite process at present in Ger- 
many. It was carried also to a great extent under 
the syncretistic system of Alexandrian Platonism. 
And heretics, as Clement observes, 1 knew how to 
wrest the Scriptures to their meaning, even by their 
tone of voice when reading, or by altering the 
quantity, accents, or punctuation. But in England 
our powers of criticism are not yet equal to this 
task ; and we have therefore adopted another 
mode. We take those doctrines in which all do 
agree, and strike off all the rest as unimportant; 
chalking off from each body of opinion a certain 
extent, beyond which no shots are to count. Now, 
all systems must have some points of agreement. 
Some will have many. The points, indeed, must 
diminish in number with the increase of systems 
brought under review, and at last they will almost 
vanish. But at first this will not be perceptible. 
The religious syncretism of this day began with con- 
founding Episcopacy and Presbyterianism. It was 
not obliged to leave out more than a seeming matter 
of discipline. Then came other sects calling them- 
selves Christian, and the Christianity which it held 
dwindled away in its amount. Now have come still 
more, not calling themselves Christian ; and the reli- 
gion of the syncretist has also ceased to be Chris- 
tian. It leaves out what they leave out. It has 
become a "rational religion." The next sect will 
i Stromat. iii. p. 620. 



CH. IX.] NECE6SAMLY DEGENERATES. 95 

leave out rational, and the next, religion; and then 
the residuum will be nothing. 

But sooner or later, to this it must come. And 
so it must be in purely scientific ethics. If a general 
about to march an army, lays it down as a first 
principle, that he will march only so far as all the 
soldiers will march with him, let there be only one 
individual too indolent, or too cowardly, to march at 
all, and the whole movement is stopped. He is in the 
power of this man, the worst and lowest of the body. 
And so the syncretist is at the mercy of the most 
ignorant and brutalised theory among all those which 
man can conceive ; and the moment such a theory 
has risen up, rejecting the few grand truths which 
the better class, though in some error, had before 
retained, he must, to preserve his consistency, give 
up to it, and pare down his creed to its measure of 
opinion, whatever it may be. Be assured this is the 
inevitable result. The syncretist government-schools 
on the new plan were founded to teach a doctrine 
common to all sects, meaning all Christian sects, 
and none others. But the children of socialists 
have been admitted into some ; and as the socialists 
reject the Bible, the schoolmaster has been obliged 
to omit it. 1 All religion is gone. This, then, is one 
fatal mischief in such a principle. 

But the syncretist, you say, will stop short. He 
will draw a line beyond which he will not pass. 
Stop short? What, establish exclusions and dis- 
tinctions ? exclusions and distinctions in a system 
professedly of no exclusion ? How can this be al- 
lowed? And if it be allowed, where will the line 
be drawn ? Where the syncretist himself chooses ? 
Then he is really the framer of the scheme, the au- 
thority for the doctrine. He is not a syncretist, 
but an independent original thinker — the founder 
1 See Times Newspaper, March 6, 1840. 



96 MAJORITY NO GOOD CRITERION, 

of a new school ; and moreover an eclectic, culling 
out from other sects the doctrines which happen 
to suit his own fancy. He, the secretary of state, 
if the matter be a government- question, will take 
upon himself the office of the Catholic Church ; that 
office which he protests against when exercised by 
the Catholic Church — protests against as usurpa- 
tion, illiberality, subtle speculation, scholastic the- 
ology, metaphysical dogmatism; — he, the secretary 
of state, will take the chair of a General Council, and 
say what doctrines form part of revelation, and what 
are inventions of man ; what God has commanded 
to be taught, and what He will suffer to be omitted ! 
He will dare to frame a creed, and impose it upon 
the nation. It cannot be otherwise. 

But, you say, he will take the doctrines of the ma- 
jority And as probably the majority at first will be 
on the side of truth, retaining doctrines handed down 
to them by an anterior system, before syncretism be- 
gan its work, there will be a hope that this criterion 
will answer to exclude the more obviously pernicious 
fancies. So men think now in religion. Because the 
greater number in this country, however they differ in 
other points, happen to be agreed that Christianity 
is a revelation, that the Bible is inspired, that moral 
duties are a part of its laws, that religion is necessary 
to man, — they think that they can draw a line which 
shall cut off anti- Christian from Christian sects, 
deism from a vague generalised Gospel-scheme, 
blasphemy from religious dissent. But let them be 
assured, no system founded on the general testimony 
of man ever maintained its ground, any more than 
a house built upon a quicksand. In Germany this 
ground is gone already. The greater number are 
always ignorant and bad ; requiring to be led, not 
intended to lead. It is the test of a sound philo- 
sophy to believe this. When a nation, indeed, has 



CH. IX.] END OF SYNCRETISM* 97 

for years been Under the influence of a vast orga- 
nised society, holding up a permanent creed of truth 
before their eyes, and by an established machinery 
propelling its own better spirit into every vein and 
artery of the body politic, that body will retain those 
truths for a very long time ; even when the power 
of the society is diminished, and its machinery is 
become enfeebled or disordered. So it is with the 
maintenance of truth in this land at this moment. 
But when, instead of restoring this machinery, it is 
to be entirely destroyed, and the body is to be left 
wholly to itself, then human nature will find its 
vent, and take its course ; and all follies, and w r ith 
follies all crimes, will spring out unresisted ; " when," 
as the historian describes, 1 "the whole system of life 
shall be thrown into confusion ; and man's nature 
having made itself master of its laws — that nature, so 
prone to sin even when opposed by laws — will de- 
light to shew itself the slave of its passions, the over- 
ruler of all right, the bitter enemy of all that is 
better and wiser than itself:" fuvTapo^OsVror ts tov 

filOV ST TOV XCCl^OV TOV TOV TY) 7ToX=i, KOil TWV VOjXCOV 

xpannicroura n ocvQpuTrsia, (fuVir, sloo^v7oc x.cc\ ttupoc tovt 

VO[JLOV<r ddiKHV, CCO'IMEVYI Id^XdJO'EV Cl'tpUT^Yir fJAV OpyY)<T 

oicra,, x.gdcro'uv dl tov dixa/o'j, iroX^x d\ tov TTpou- 
%ovro,". Once set aside positive external law — whe- 
ther a law of truth, or a law over the will, or a law 
of action — promulgated and enforced by a definite 
body of men, and in defiance of the opinion of the 
majority, and the real spirit of that majority will 
soon shew itself. So the French revolution began 
with sticking bunches of artificial flowers into the 
touch-holes of their cannons to welcome their cap- 
tured monarch, and ended in butchering him on the 
guillotine. So the bad Greek philosophy commenced 
with Aristotle, and ended with Pyrrho and the so- 
1 Thucyd. lib. iii. 84. 
K 



98 TEMPTATION TO SYNCBETISE. 

phists. So the German reformers take the first step 
with Luther and Calvin, and the last with Hegel 
and Strauss. And so our own English moralists 
first erected Locke — the Christian Locke — into 
an idol, and now they will be ready to follow Mr. 
Owen. 

The opinion of a majority, then, is no guarantee 
against the ultimate degradation of syncretism. It 
oversteps the edge of the precipice, and it must go 
to the bottom. It has no inherent power to stop 
itself, without destroying its own nature. It may 
endeavour to catch hold of a bush, but the bush 
will give way. 

And do not suppose, you — I mean the young 
reader, — who as yet know little of the abstruser dis- 
tinctions of philosophy, that what I am now saying 
on the subject of syncretism, strange as the word 
may sound, has no practical reference to yourself. 
You cannot take up a newspaper without finding 
the principle avowed, that man ought not to make 
over-nice distinctions between sects and parties. 
You will scarcely find any situation in life, divided 
as men now are into sects and parties, where you 
will not be called on to say, whether you are a syn- 
cretist or not. Even in studying Ethics as a science, 
you require to be guarded against it. For instance, 
when you enter on the study of the Greek schools, 
of Aristotle especially, with the spirit and doctrines 
of Christianity hanging over you, you will be tempted 
in a degree of which you will scarcely be sensible, 
to syncretise ; to interpret heathenism by Chris- 
tianity ; to see goodness where no goodness was 
meant ; and to trace similarities, which have little 
foundation but in your own fancy and wish to find 
them. It was thus that Christians of old thought 
that they could discover in Plato, not only many 
wonderful coincidences with the revealed word, 



CM. IX.] TEMPTATION TO SYNCRETISE. 99 

which undoubtedly they could find, but a mys- 
terious conformity, which almost exalted the heathen 
philosopher to a level with revelation. The same 
process, to a still greater extent, had been carried 
on by the Alexandrian Platonists. Not only in 
Plato, but in Aristotle, and nearly all the Grecian 
schools ; in the traditions of the East ; in the poetry 
of Homer ; in the gross polytheism of the popular 
worship, — they endeavoured, by the help of allegory 
and criticism, to read their own fundamental doc- 
trines ; — -just as an enthusiastic antiquary persists in 
reading on a defaced milestone the name of some 
favourite Roman emperor. At a still later period, 
in the middle ages, Aristotle was used in the same 
manner by the schoolmen, who endeavoured to 
make him utter sentiments most foreign to his na- 
ture; and truths, of which he had few or no glimpses, 
that they might obtain a license for speculating 
freely in his scientific ethics, as if they were a coun- 
terpart of their own authoritative Christianity. The 
same thing was revived by the Platonists of the fif- 
teenth century. 

And you also must study heathen ethical writers. 
You must approach them, if you w r ould study them 
properly, with reverence ; with an expectation of 
finding in them deep truths, and mighty attestations 
to your own Christian creed. And that creed you 
must carry with you as a light into their dark re- 
cesses ; or rather as a rule and standard by which 
to try and prove whatever you find in them. And 
you must feel delighted at every discovery of con- 
formity. You must search for such conformities. 
You must be constantly comparing, illustrating the 
two systems one by the other. If you omit any one 
of these rules, you will not study rightly or success- 
fully. And now let me ask, if you will not be under 
the temptation and risk of syncretismg ; that is, of 



100 CONSEQUENCES OF SYNCBETI&M. 

confounding the things compared, tracing more re- 
semblances than really exist, and thus obliterating 
the distinctions between them? 

And what will be the consequence ? What have 
been the consequences of this principle before ? It 
first raised the system of Plato to a level with Chris- 
tianity ; and then men were easily found to transfer 
their allegiance from the Apostles to the philosopher. 
It gave to the low vulgar sensuality of heathen ido- 
latry a deep mystical import ; shed on it, in fact, all 
the brilliancy and purity of that high philosophy, 
which persisted in finding there its own hidden 
truths, though in symbols and enigmas ; and thus 
to the Alexandrian Platonism we owe the revival of 
paganism under the Emperor Julian. It afterwards 
raised up a most formidable materialistic and athe- 
istic spirit against the Church under the form of 
Peripateticism. A similar anti- christian philosophy 
developed itself in the Florentine school. To the 
same desire of conciliating opposing theories, we 
may attribute much of the fatal poison of the Ger- 
man school. We have been saved from it hitherto 
in this country solely by the want of any deep phi- 
losophy ; and by having kept the provinces of Chris- 
tianity and Ethics so distinct, that we have at last 
been brought to suppose that Christianity is only a 
series of abstract theological metaphysics, and Ethics 
only a modification of the laws between man and 
man. But if once a deep philosophy springs up in 
this country, as it is beginning to spring ; if you 
do, what to become a good moralist you must 
do, study Christianity and Ethics side by side ; 
then, indeed, you will run the same risk of so 
deifying human morality, by unconsciously tracing 
in it the lineaments of a higher system, that it 
will finally rise up as a rival, and you will be un- 
able to force it down again into the position of a 



CH. IX.] DISTINCTIONS IMPORTANT. 101 

servant and handmaid. God has set two witnesses 
in the world of morals, as in the world of matter ; 
the one to rule the day, the other to rule the night. 
Let us not think that we can learn the nature of the 
one, without making observations on the other. But 
let us guard against so gazing on the moon with 
dazzled and blinded eyes, that we transfer to it the 
brilliancy of the sun, of which it only gives back 
a pale and borrowed light. Let us not make it a 
parhelion. 

For now I will lay down another general prin- 
ciple, of w^hich this advice is only one application. 
And it is indeed more my object than any thing else, 
to suggest general heads of thought, which may be 
carried out and traced in the workings of life by an 
active-minded reader himself. All our knoivledge 
consists in discerning relations between two objects ; 
and to discern a relation between them, we must do 
two things, each equally essential, but the one seem- 
ingly opposed to the other. We must take care to 
keep them connected; and we must also take care 
not to confound them in one. If not brought close 
together, we cannot compare them ; if brought too 
close, there is nothing to compare. Would you com- 
pare two kinds of water, you must keep them in 
separate vessels. Pour them into one, and com- 
parison is lost. And so we must study heathen ethics 
in conjunction with Christianity ; but not so assimi- 
late them, as that either Christianity shall seem hea- 
thenism, or heathenism Christianity. On one side 
is God, on the other man ; on one side faith, on the 
other reason ; on one side law, on the other argu- 
ment ; on the one information, on the other expe- 
rience ; and (that which always forms an intrinsic 
inherent difference discoverable by even an untu- 
tored eye) on one side a perfect scheme, containing 
all that is necessary for man, matter for all his fa- 
it 2 



102 SYNCRETISM PREVALENT. 

culties, objects for all his affections, laws for all his 
tendencies ; on the other, an imperfect fragment 
wrought out from some single principle to answer 
some single purpose, omitting others. 

And this fact respecting the nature of all human 
knowledge may give us some clue to a question pro- 
posed at the beginning : Why syncretism, or confu- 
sion, is essentially a sin, and abhorrent to the nature 
both of God and man. The universe indeed, is 
one ; but it is also many. Every work of nature 
is one ; but it is also many — composed of many 
parts. It would seem, not only from the deep mys- 
tery on which rests the very foundation of Chris- 
tianity, but from the testimony of our own reason, 1 
from the laws of our own affections, from the evi- 
dence of the works of God spread round us in 
boundless profusion — that there is something in the 
hidden attributes of God, in the awful sanctuary of 
his essential Being, which corresponds not merely 
with our notion of unity, as when we reverently be- 
lieve that God is one ; but also with our notion of 
plurality, as when, not presuming to explain, yet 
willingly repeating, what He has placed in our lips 
by the teaching of the Church, we confess " that in 
the unity of that Godhead there be three Persons." 

You hear in the present day — (and do not think 
that I am wandering from my purpose, in expound- 
ing the workings of a syncretistic spirit, beyond the 
exact limit of your ethical studies ; for a principle 
fatal in them will be fatal in many others ; and it 
will not prevail there without having spread, or 
afterwards spreading throughout the whole system of 
life;) — you hear in the present day much about 
love, and charity, and mutual toleration ; that we 
should overlook differences of opinion, and think 

1 See the Parmenides of Plato, which is written to develope 
this very principle. 



CH. IX.] CHRISTIANITY DISTINCTIVE. 103 

only on points of agreement ; that all men, however 
they vary in speculative doctrines, are in harmony 
on the great fundamental truths of religion and 
morals ; that it is our duty to bind together, not to 
distract society ; that Christianity itself boasts as its 
chief merit, that it preaches peace on earth, and 
goodwill among men. I answer that it is false ; 
that every one of these maxims is false, if not ba- 
lanced by another of a very different nature ; ay, 
and held in subjection to it — as false as the doctrine 
of art, that every work should be one, if not com- 
bined with a previous doctrine, that that one should 
be composed of many parts. 

Christianity was not promulgated to unite all 
men in one fraternity, — as a wild fanaticism is now 
preaching in a neighbouring country, and a still 
worse indifference proclaims in this ; but first to 
select, to make a distinction between one class of 
men and another, — those who would receive, and 
those who reject it. Our blessed Lord did not come 
down to send "peace on earth, but a sword.*' The 
very name of the Church is not " confounded" but 
elect, called out and severed from the icorld ; and 
the consummation of all things will be not when all 
souls shall be merged in one fate, but when " the 
one shall be taken and the other left" — " the sheep 
set at the right hand, and the goats on the left." 
Christian love is not the love of a vague, undefined, 
general Being, as some moralists have said, but of a 
precise, rigidly-prescribed, and peculiar character. 
Christian truth is not an abstract mist of speculation, 
like a form "without shape and void," but cut out 
and determined from falsehood by an outline sharp 
and hard as adamant, against which it is declared that 
all human tools shall be shivered, and the decay of 
years and ages shall be powerless. Christian laws are 
not Lesbian leaden rules, bending to the will of each 



104 WORLD FORMED ON DISTINCTIONS. 

man who applies them ; but they also are hard as 
adamant, full of resistance, describing differences, 
commanding exclusions, severing between the good 
and the bad, " piercing even to the dividing asunder 
of soul and spirit" (Heb. iv. 12). 

I assert that the primary law of our human 
being is not confusion, but distinction ; that differ- 
ence must precede resemblance, harmony be formed 
out of discord, plurality exist before unity; that 
syncretism, wherever it exists, whether it bids us 
reason without discerning between the true and the 
false ; or act without severing between the right 
and the wrong ; or live in society without excluding 
one class, and admitting another ; or invent works 
of art without acknowledging any rules to bind us 
to one imitation, and to prohibit another ; or govern 
without shewing any peculiar and distinctive fa- 
vours ; or worship without any definite creed, pro- 
claiming all that differ from it to be error — that 
syncretism, wherever it is found, is false and fatal. 
If admitted into instruction in Ethics, it will make 
its way into religion. Syncretism in teaching, and 
Pantheism in religion, went hand in hand in the 
Platonism of Alexandria. They are moving hand 
in hand at this moment in Germany and France. 
And if the one obtains ground in England, the other 
will soon follow. 

Observe, to commence with the senses, how the 
whole material fabric of the world is built upon dis- 
tinctions. It is fashioned out of figures ; figures 
are composed of lines ; and every line is a limit, se- 
parating something on one side from something on 
the other. See how every leaf and flower is traced 
out into a net- work of the most delicate fibres ; how 
the very sky is mottled with clouds ; the one broad 
expanse of ocean ridged and furrowed with its " mul- 
titudinous dimples." avu'pifyxov ys'xaoyxa; the heavens 



CI1. IX.] WOULD FORMED ON DISTINCTIONS. 10-3 

set and studded with stars ; the globe wrapt in its 
" robe of divers colours ;" air, and earth, and water 
peopled each with its separate tribes, each tribe set 
apart from the other by some peculiar organisa- 
tion, each individual discernible by some one and 
appropriate symbol, each requiring to be known by 
one peculiar name. Man himself, the crowning 
work of creation, with all the unity of type and 
common nature prevailing through each individual, 
is yet infinitely diversified ; so that no two men, 
perhaps, ever appeared upon the globe precisely 
alike, even in their animal configuration; not to men- 
tion the power of variation in his features, which en- 
ables him to exhibit, and us to trace, the minutest 
shades of mental feeling, by the vibration of a nerve, 
the varying of a shadow, the slightest fluctuation in 
the curves or angles of his lineaments. What would 
become of nature, if some syncretistic spirit were to 
insist on taking a sponge, and wiping out these fine 
and delicate distinctions : smearing over the sky ; 
obliterating the tracery of the flower ; daubing the 
earth into one tint ; reducing the animal world not 
only to one general type, but to one uniform mould 
throughout ; covering man's face with a white sheet, 
through which no trace of a soul could be dis- 
cerned, because no play or difference of feature was 
allowed ? 

Proceed to art. What is art built on but on 
difference ? What is music, but " a distinction of 
sounds," and varieties of rhythm ? "What painting, 
architecture, sculpture, but an imitation of the 
boundless varieties of physical nature, to express 
a boundless variety of moral feelings ? What lan- 
guage, but a multiplicity of articulations ? What 
writing, but a combination of separate elements, 
in which difference is so essential, that without it 
meaning is lost ? 



106 WORLD FOEMED ON DISTINCTIONS. 

So, reason is the knowledge of differences — the 
perception of relation between objects, which, how- 
ever similar, are not the same. It is a work of classi- 
fication, in which an infinite variety of separate facts 
are not confounded together, but held distinctly, 
and yet conjointly, under one head, by an act of the 
mind. Let them cease to be separate facts, and the 
whole work of reason is superseded. And so with 
moral feelings and affections, as well as moral ac- 
tions. Vary a circumstance, omit an element, con- 
fuse a relation, and our feelings of love, or pity, or 
resentment, or admiration, change at once. Shift 
the slightest muscle under the skin, and the confi- 
guration of the body is altered ; and its effect upon 
the eye altered also, and with it the ideas which it 
is intended to convey. And so, vary or confound 
the sharp, clear pencilling of outline in the moral 
actions of man, and moral characteristics are obli- 
terated, and with them our moral sentiments. And 
so, too, of society. 1 " If the whole body were an 
eye, where were the hearing ? If the whole were 
hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath 
God set the members every one of them in the 
body as it hath pleased him. And if they were all 
one member, where were the body? But now are 
they many members, yet but one body." 2 

I assert, then, that there is something in the very 
constitution of our nature which protests against 
the principle of blotting out distinctions, and con- 
fusing land-marks ; something which seems to imply 
that the whole universe, both physical and spiritual, 
is built upon distinctions ; that variety — a variety 
definitely marked, and yet not inconsistent with 
1 See a beautiful passage, Henry V. sc. 2, act. i.— 
"Therefore doth heaven divide 
The state of man in divers functions/' &c, 
2 1 Cor. xii. 17. 



CH. IX.] FALSEHOODS OF SYNCRETISM. 107 

unity — is as pleasing to the eye of our Creator, and 
as useful in the accomplishment of His plans, as it 
is in the eye of man to the fulfilment of human pro- 
jects. And therefore that syncretism in itself is 
morally odious and offensive. 

But follow the question more immediately into 
ethical speculation. Insist on it that all theories 
are alike ; that they all contain the same fundamen- 
tal axioms ; and that the slight seeming decrepancies 
may be reconciled by an easy Procrustean process, 
or at any rate are wholly unimportant. Say of 
Ethics, and abstract reasonings in general, what 
men are now daring to say in matters of religion, 
and what is the consequence ? 

First, then, you are asserting a falsehood ; for 
as no two human beings are precisely the same in 
form, so no two human systems of doctrine can be 
identical, or they would not be two. One will dwell 
more on this principle, another on that ; one will be 
coloured with such a feeling, another with another ; 
there will be an omission here, a fullness of statement 
there ; a tone, a mannerism, and individuality of 
thought in each, which you cannot deny without 
a falsehood. 

But you do not deny, you only attempt to obli- 
terate them. Well, how are they to be obliterated ? 
By erasures, by suppressions, by distortions, by sink- 
ing this, by magnifying that — here paring and rasp- 
ing away, there filling out expressions — in one word, 
by the arts of forgery. There is a forgery in ab- 
stract speculations, just as in commercial dealings. 
In the third and fourth century of Christianity, a 
literal wholesale forgery of works was not an uncom- 
mon occupation, even of defenders of Christianity. 
And why ? Because they were desirous of tracing 
Christianity distinctly in an anterior system, instead 
of contenting themselves with seeing it faintly imaged 



108 NO VALUE FOE TEUTH. 

in a most imperfect shadow. And after wresting 
what really was ancient to this purpose, they then 
proceeded by the same arts to invent what they 
wanted in addition — to forge a counterpart, where 
they had not one original. Shall we wonder that the 
spirit of syncretism is odious in the sight of God ? 

Once more. A man, who values his property, 
knows its limits to an inch ; he is alive to the slightest 
trespass, marks the least change and variation. We 
are jealous over that which we love and honour, and 
like to secure and appropriate it to ourselves — not 
to throw down our fences. And if a man holds any 
system of truths, if he values them, studies them, un- 
derstands them as he ought, he also will be keenly 
alive to their just boundaries and precise determi- 
nation. He will keep them "asa sealed fountain and 
a fenced pool," lest waste may be committed on them 
—lest a bit be chipped of! here, and a stain cast 
there ; and instead of obliterating differences, he 
will be lynx-eyed in detecting, even excessive in 
magnifying them. Let us not be ashamed of con- 
fessing this, as if it were an infirmity of nature, 
because the infirmity of nature does sometimes 
make us irritable and unkind, instead of merely firm 
and discriminating. Firmness and truth would be 
cheaply purchased, even at the extravagant price of 
occasional persecution. But persecution does not 
follow from confidence, but from distrust in the 
soundness of our opinions. It is when we are sus- 
picious of ourselves, that we become impatient of 
contradiction. And Christianity did not persecute 
till the grounds of its faith had been subverted 
by the usurpations of Popery. Law-suits do not 
arise where the bounds of property are settled, but 
where they are indistinct. Men do not quarrel for 
precedency, when there is a herald's college to ap- 
peal to. Persons do not hate their known enemies 



CH, IX.] SYNCRETISM DESPISES TRIFLES. 109 

half as much as uncertain friends, who disappoint 
their expectations. And God has made us jealous 
over that which we love, and intended that we 
should love real truth, as the most precious of bles- 
sings, and the foundation of all other blessings. And 
therefore no man who has a value for truth can 
be a syncretist, and no syncretist have a value for 
truth. 

Neither can he have any sense of the import- 
ance of what are called trifles. If he pronounces 
of any system that any part whatever is valueless, 
and may be amputated without affecting the whole, 
he is ignorant of one main law in the constitution of 
the world, and ignorant through levity and frivolity, 
or through dishonest prejudice. In this world no- 
thing is a trifle. A painter was one day copying a 
portrait by Rembrandt. He took off shadow after 
shadow, light after light, line upon line, most accu- 
rately. Still the expression was wanting. Hundreds 
on hundreds of touches were valueless, till, by the 
aid of a microscope, he discovered one hair-like line 
beneath the eye ; and this put in, the whole likeness 
came. So it is with all great things. It is only 
littleness of mind that cannot appreciate little things. 
On the eve of one of his greatest battles, the General, 
who, almost alone in this age, has shewn us what a 
great man is, was found sitting up in his tent, writ- 
ing folio upon folio — upon what ? on the compara- 
tive merits of tin and copper canisters for soldiers' 
use. Look at the works of nature. Do they exhi- 
bit any contempt for trifles ? What is the pencilling 
of the flower, the plumage of the insect, the mould- 
ing of the leaf, the depth below depth of animated 
worlds, sinking down and down till sense is lost in 
tracing the minuteness of their structure, — but a 
witness against the ignorant man, who thinks that, 
in the sight of an infinite Being any thing can be 

L 



110 IMPORTANCE OF TRIFLES. 

little, when nothing can be great? Think of the 
human eye. It is the mirror of the mind, the tele- 
graph of thought, the great actor in the pantomine 
of signs, by which we hold converse with our fellow- 
men, and read their souls. What is it but a little 
dot of light, shifting every moment, and forming an 
infinite variety of the minutest angles with the tw r o 
ellipses of the eyelids ? And yet by these slight 
variations we read the thoughts and passions of the 
mind within ; as we read a whole world of truth, past, 
present, and future, of this world and of others, of 
man and of God, by little lines, and dots, and curves, 
and angles, of hairVbreadth thickness, in the forms 
of writing. So, think how a single voice will decide 
the fate of nations, even in the most popular of go- 
vernments, so long as a majority decides ; and with- 
out such a majority there can be no society. Think 
how one trifling act, even the wavering of a thought, 
will give a bias to the mind, and lay the foundation 
of a habit which nothing afterwards can alter. 
Think how, in the course either of virtue or of vice, 
all may be safe or unsafe, up to a certain point ; 
when again one little act consolidates the habit 
for ever. Before, there might be escape ; now, 
there is none. Before, heaven might have been 
lost ; now, it is gained for ever. Think how our 
moral affections rest mainly on what men call trifles 
— how trifles please, trifles disgust, trifles irritate, 
trifles excite admiration, trifles provoke emulation, 
trifles rouse jealousy, trifles consolidate love, trifles 
are the proof of virtue, trifles indicate the habit ; 
and in all these cases simply because they are trifles. 
Great occasions, violent temptations, gigantic efforts, 
superhuman prowess, these are rarely within our 
reach. And they are not required. They even 
diminish admiration. Our hearts are balanced on a 
point, and thev will vibrate with a breath of air. 



CII. IX.] IMPORTANCE OF TRIFLES. Ill 

And then turn to the field of reasoning. If 
every principle contain, as in a Trojan horse, a host 
of applications, — if it is but the condensed sum- 
mary, the quintessence of innumerable experiences, 
— so also every separate fact involves the principle 
itself. Of things inseparably united, no one part, 
however small, can be denied without the denial of 
the whole. If a man's hair were so connected with 
his body, that it could never be detached, the non- 
existence of a single hair would be as valid a proof 
against the existence of the man, as the non-exist- 
ence of his whole body. And no fact whatever in 
nature is isolated. It has deep and unseen connex- 
ions with many, perhaps with all others. The world 
is built like that fabled roof of exquisite architec- 
ture, in which no one stone could be touched, with- 
out risking the ruin of the whole. It is hung, as a 
house exposed to thieves, with wires and bells cross- 
ing each other in every direction, and when any 
one spring is touched, the bells will sound in the 
most distant part — sound, at least, to those whose 
ears are alive and watching to catch the alarm, 
(p uwi'evto, o-wztokti. And thus the most thoughtful 
men, whether in purely scientific morals, or in the 
system of revelation, are the most keenly sensitive 
to the value of what common men call trifles. They 
know that in law, and politics, and nature, and phy- 
sical science, as well as in theology, there is an Atha- 
nasian creed — ay, and with its damnatory clauses, 
commanding us to make fine distinctions, to guard 
against the omission of iotas, to affirm positively and 
boldly subtle seeming oppositions, in which only a 
hair's breadth separates the true from the false, the 
safe from the perilous ; and which therefore it is the 
first business, and even the boast of the lawyer, the 
politician, the moralist, the physical philosopher, as 
well as the theologian, to discover, to proclaim, to 



112 JMPOUTANCii OF TRIFLES. 

insist on, to warn their followers against negligence 
or presumption when dealing with them, in the very 
words of the theologian, " which faith unless a 
man keep whole and undeflled, he cannot be saved." 
Why was the refusal of "a private gentleman to 
pay twenty or thirty shillings to the king's service 
argued," says Clarendon, "before all the judges in 
England?" Because in those twenty shillings, one 
party saw the germ of a tyranny, and the other of 
a rebellion. Why will a lawyer warn you against 
permitting a neighbour to claim the gathering of 
even a leaf upon your estate, without contesting his 
right ? Because the gathering the leaf may inval- 
idate your title to the whole estate. Why will a wise 
politician contest so earnestly for the form of a 
word, or the wearing a hat, or the title of a writ ? 
Because each of these will become a precedent ; 
and in precedent is involved principle. Why will 
an engineer be alarmed at the first drop of water 
oozing through a dam ? Because the rest, he knows, 
will follow it. Why is the discovery of one little 
bone in a stratum of rock enough to overturn a 
whole theory of geology ? Because the little bone 
like a pack-thread will draw after it the whole skele- 
ton like a coil of rope ; and the skeleton will imply the 
power which brought it to its site ; and that power 
will be vast and pregnant with other influences; ard 
thus the whole system of the science will be dragged 
into peril, as many other systems have been perilled, 
and have been upset by the merest trifle, by one 
little fact. Why will a spot of blood betray murder? 
Why will the print of a nail discover a thief? Why 
will a whole neighbourhood take flight at the sight 
of a little boy with only a little spark of fire going 
into a magazine of powder ; or a crowd disperse 
upon the ice at the sound of the slightest crack? 
Because nature, as well as theology, has her Atha- 



CH. IX.] USE OF DIFFERENT SECTS. 113 

nasian creed and her damnatory clauses for those 
who neglect iotas — because nature, as well as theo- 
logy, does not know what a trifle is, 

And therefore Syncretism, which would cut off 
trifles — trifles not of human invention (for these it 
may prohibit us from intruding on the body of de- 
finite revealed truth), but points which it deems 
insignificant within that body itself; or which, in 
Morals, would deal with little tendencies and sepa- 
rate phenomena as things of no importance — Syn- 
cretism, which would assimilate different schools by 
squeezing them all into one mould, cutting off this 
angle and defacing this outline, as if it were no part 
of their substance, — this Syncretism is a direct vio- 
lation of a paramount law of reason ; and as such, 
God and nature have proscribed it. 

Add, then, that these trifles in religion are parts 
of a definite revelation ; that in morals they are 
placed before us on the authority of great and wise, 
though imperfect men; and that nevertheless we, 
the ignorant student, or the new original thinker, 
presume to determine that they are useless — just as 
if an anatomist would insist on amputating from the 
work of nature in the human body every organ of 
which he could not discover the intention ; — and 
we shall see another sin in Syncretism, to make it 
perilous to man and odious to God. 

We scarely know, indeedj how the differences 
of sects and systems may be an essential condition 
for the preservation of truth in the world, and the 
proper developement and play of human reason. 
They are mischievous, and we must try to extirpate 
them by bringing all men to the knowledge of truth. 
And yet if we attempt to extirpate them by any 
other method than those which God has appointed, 
we may be doing harm ; just as the agriculturist 
succeeded in destroying one race of vermin, but 
l 2 



114 USE OF DIFFEBENT SECTS. 

found, to his distress, that they had been formed to 
keep out another. The very rationalism which lies 
at the root of the syncretistic spirit clamours loudly 
against any attempt to bind down the human reason 
to the slavery of some one system. Individual dis- 
tinctions of thought and feeling are as natural, and 
may be as necessary for the general good, as dis- 
tinctions of races, and castes, and professions. Pro- 
perty in knowledge may, under similar restrictions, 
be as great a good as property in land. And Chris- 
tianity rigidly as it guards the bounds of its precise 
revelation, keeping it as a sacred ground, a rifxevog 
set apart, and not to be profaned by human altera- 
tion, beyond this does give great scope for the 
peculiar tendencies of individual men. 

Perhaps it is only in this way that we can gain a 
full knowledge of human nature, by observing it as 
it is depicted in various theories by different hands. 
Perhaps the reduction of them all to some one type 
might be as fatal to the progress of ethical science, 
as the passion of Michael Angelo for one single 
model in ancient sculpture, the Torso, was to the 
perfection of his art, when he persisted in reprodu- 
cing it, fitly or not, in every work which he painted. 
Perhaps, as human minds are composed of a variety 
of faculties and affections, they require a variety of 
objects to act upon them. One man may be in- 
fluenced by this notion ; another by that. So Plato 
supposed that there were above us deities or angels, 
each with a peculiar character, under whom the pe- 
culiar characters of men ranged themselves at will. 1 
And philosophical systems may serve the same pur- 
pose to the human reason. At any rate, we learn 
from their dissensions, the impotency and errors of 
human reason by itself. To force it always to tell 
the same tale, whether it would or not, is to give it 
f Phaedrus. 



CH. IX.J EVILS OF SYNCRETISM. 115 

a seeming consistency and truth, which, in reality, 
it cannot possess. Hence Syncretism is always 
connected with an undue estimate of the human in- 
tellect, and this itself is a grand evil. But further 
I need not go. I will not stop to ask, if the object 
of the Syncretist can be gained. Is authority of any 
value, when we have turned and twisted it to serve 
our own propose ? or will a witness confirm a case, 
who answers yes to every question ? And will men's 
jealousies and quarrels be appeased by this forced 
and strained conformity, or rather will they not be 
inflamed? For some trifles still must be found, in 
which they cannot agree. And who are so bitterly 
and so naturally enemies to each other, as those 
who agree in all essentials, and yet will not yield up 
their opinions in matters confessedly a trifle ? 

And now sufficient has been said to warn you 
against indulging in a habit of Syncretism, unless 
you wish to encourage animosity instead of promot- 
ing peace — to reduce philosophy to mere dregs and 
ashes — to confound right with wrong, truth with 
falsehood — to despise things which no wise man can 
despise — to set at nought authority — to obliterate 
distinctions from the world, which, as far as man 
can see, are necessary to its very existence. " Woe 
unto them that call evil good, and good evil ; that 
put darkness for light, and light for darkness ; that 
put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter ! Woe unto 
them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in 
their own sight!" (Isaiah v. 20.) 



116 SUMMARY OF RULES FOR THE 



CHAPTER X. 

And now let me sum up briefly the rules for the 
study of Ethics, which result from the foregoing 
observations. 

In the first place, be assured, that you have 
already all the knowledge required for common 
practice in the laws and doctrines of the Catholic 
Church. 

Secondly, when you require to know how to 
manage these as a science, go to some Greek phi- 
losopher — some single one — and study the science 
there. 

Thirdly, in making this selection, you will do 
well to choose Aristotle ; not because his theory is 
the best, for it is far inferior to Plato's, but it is the 
most scientific, most elaborately and distinctly rea- 
soned out. 

Fourthly, be prepared to correct and enlarge 
Aristotle by Plato ; and to Plato you may add all the 
other Greek sects and modern moralists, only refer- 
ring whatever you find in them to the doctrines of 
Aristotle. They will serve to enlarge, to balance, to 
qualify, to contradict, to illustrate, to support him. 
Range all the moral information which they offer 
under heads supplied by Aristotle. In this man- 
ner you will attain variety without confusion ; you 
will be continually building upon a regular fixed 
foundation. You will not be distracted between a 
choice of contending leaders ; and you will have 
all the advantages of Eclecticism without its pre- 



CII. X.] STUDY OF MORALS. 117 

sumption, its chance-medley, and its ultimate degra- 
dation. 

Fifthly, remember that nothing which comes to 
you on human authority, can be received, if contra- 
dicted by divine authority. Doctrines are not ne- 
cessarily true because they are internally consistent, 
and can be demonstrated one from the other. To 
be true in the only right sense of the word truth, 
they must be agreeable to the word of God. Hold, 
therefore, Christianity in your hand, not only the 
Creed and the Catechism, but the Articles of your 
Church, its liturgies, and formularies, as so many 
touchstones by which to try the soundness of every 
ethical statement. 

Sixthly, abstain from mixing up Christianity 
with the science of Ethics, though you thus care- 
fully connect them. Do not look for more Gospel- 
truth in heathen minds than you can really trace. 
Read heathen writers in a heathen sense, see them 
as they are — do not strain their testimony, or bend 
their opinions, to meet truths of which they proba- 
bly knew nothing. 

Seventhly, neither introduce science into Chris- 
tianity farther than is absolutely necessary for prac- 
tical purposes. It is very useful and necessary that 
you should understand the science of Ethics as a 
system, if you are to teach it to others. But it is 
not so necessary that you should make all Christi- 
anity itself a system. Let it remain as God himself 
has framed it — a mystery ; some parts visible, some 
lying hid ; some obviously connected, others seem- 
ingly separate ; here passages opening into depths, 
which the human eye shrinks from exploring; there 
steps and doorways tempting us to ascend and wan- 
der through its unseen labyrinths. Attempt, with a 
profane curiosity, to lay the whole fabric open, to 
trace the chart and outline of every portion, to num- 



118 MYSTERY TO BE PRESERVED. 

ber every stone, and interpret every sculpture, — and 
the mystery is vanished. And with the mystery will 
vanish its deep and salutary influence, not only on 
the practice of the heart, but on the studies of the 
understanding. Be assured that whatever is intended 
to rule men's minds as a supreme authority and last 
standard of appeal, must be a mystery — something 
which we do not understand, of which we see only 
a part. Let the eye pass behind the throne, and 
see the sovereign in his closet, and the mystery of 
royalty will to the common eye be lost, and with it 
the keystone of society. Let man stand before man 
simply as a fellow-being, without a supernatural 
commission, and man has no authority. Look on the 
physical world barely as an object of sense, as some- 
thing which we see, and hear, and touch, and handle, 
but be unable to trace in it any deep hidden secret, 
any power beyond its own, any meaning but what 
meets the eye, — and it is stripped of its glorious 
ministry as a witness to its Creator, and becomes 
our plaything or our slave. Attempt to demonstrate 
every thing, leaving no first principle unproved, to be 
received in faith, not to be explained by reason, and 
the very foundation of reason must be overturned. 
Lay bare the human mind, and let us see all its 
workings, and hear all its thoughts ; let there be 
no mystery in human associations, and what would 
become of all our moral affections ? Whom should 
we love, or honour, or trust, or feel shame in their 
presence, or strive to conform ourselves to their 
example, as we do now ? Lay open all the past, — 
remove that solemn darkness now resting on anti- 
quity, which makes it so venerable in our eyes, and 
fills us with self-distrust, and awe, and sobriety of 
mind, and keeps us walking in the old paths, and 
honouring our forefathers, and eschewing change, 
and preserving our inheritance of good rather than 



CH. X.] USE OF MYSTERY. 119 

fck commit waste" upon its treasures, — should we not 
become pert, and conceited, and lawless — given to 
change — with no respect for ourselves, because we 
had no respect for others ? And so, also, lay open 
the future — tell each man what will become of him 
■—convert the dim dark flashes of prophecy, which 
now serve as warnings to affright, or hopes to con- 
sole, into a broad steady glare, betraying the whole 
secret of the years to come, — and who would bear 
to live r There is a boundless craving in the hu- 
man mind, and there must be a boundless object to 
satisfy it. What we love must be perfect, without 
taint or limit — what Ave honour must be infinite in 
power — what we fear must be beyond our reali- 
zation — what we hope must be something " which 
eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it 
entered into the heart of man to conceive."' Even 
the eye must have before it a boundless prospect, or 
it sinks wearied with beating against the narrowness 
of its prison walls ; and the intellect must have infi- 
nite depth to explore, for when curiosity ceases to 
be excited, and no more worlds of thought remain 
to be conquered, the intellect, like the Macedonian 
conqueror, has nothing left but to sit down and cry. 
And thus it is that the Gospel is a mystery, and as 
a mystery must be left. And when you are told 
that, as a teacher, you must study and understand 
it scientifically, remember that you do not follow 
the practice of the schoolmen. No portion is to be 
systematised, so as to remove it from its position. 
Very little, after all, can be subjected to this opera- 
tion of arrangement ; and even this must not be 
attempted except from a practical necessity. " Thou 
shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in 
vain ;" thou shalt not deal with his revealed word 
as a subject for profane curiosity, to be pulled about 
and dislocated by a bold hand and a prying eye — 



120 DEDUCTION TO BE USED. 

" for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh 
his name in vain." 

And two more rules I will give you, of great 
practical importance. There are, we are often told, 
two ways of studying truth, of exercising reason. 
They are called Induction and Deduction. By In- 
duction, it is said, you arrive at general principles 
from particular experiences. By Deduction you 
trace a general principle in particular experiences. 
By the former you collect all the spreading ramifi- 
cations of the tree, and trace them hack to the trunk. 
By the latter you commence with the trunk, and 
proceed to investigate the hranches. And general 
principles, we all think, are higher and nobler than 
particular, and the discovery of them we deem the 
work of the most powerful minds. And to he con- 
demned to do no more than prove what has been 
given to us by others, we think a servile task. Hence 
young men, whose reason is acute, and their thirst 
for knowledge e rger, delight in Induction, and de- 
spise Deduction. They like looking forward, not 
back, ascending instead of descending, inventing, in- 
stead of proving, novelty instead of antiquity. Now, 
then, let us add another paradox to those which 
have been suggested already. With all the parade 
which has been made by logicians, in distinguish- 
ing between these two processes, is there such a 
difference between them ? Induction, to be an act 
of reason, to be legitimate, must be the same with 
Deduction. All that human reason can do is to 
prove what it receives. It invents nothing ; and 
the rule which I wish to lay down is, that your 
whole study in Ethics must be the practice of De- 
duction ; that is, of tracing in facts around you 
the general laws and axioms of morals, which are 
placed before you at the beginning by authority ; 
just as the study of scholarship is only the appli- 



CH. X.] INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION. 121 

cation of general rules of grammar to a variety of 
individual cases. 

It has been my object hitherto to put before 
you such general laws and axioms as often as 
opportunity occurred, that you might take them as 
hypotheses, and try if you found them true in your 
common observation of facts. This is Deduction. 
You would rather invent the hypothesis for your- 
self; frame, that is, new theories. Do so. But 
where do they come from ? They come, as I have 
said before, from the suggestion, not of your reason, 
but of some mysterious power within you, unreason- 
ing instinct, by which, when once you have seen 
two things together, you expect to see them toge- 
ther again. You do not indeed bring the universal 
proposition, that they always will come together, 
formally before your mind ; but the next time you 
see the one term, you will expect to see the other : 
and if they do come together again, by degrees the 
expectation will assume the form of an acknow- 
ledged truth, of an universal principle. Now, in 
what respect does this reception of the universal 
principle on the untried instinct of your own mind, 
uninterrupted, and therefore confirmed, by your 
own experience, differ from the reception of similar 
general principles on the testimony of others, they 
also being confirmed again by your own experience, 
by a process of deduction ? The Induction, that is, 
the arrival at the general principle, is in each case 
the work of a power above you. It is Instinct in 
your own mind. It is the wisdom of others, when 
you receive it upon testimony. 

Newton saw the apple fall to the ground. It 
occurred to him — it was not reasoned out — it was 
a suggestion of some power above him — that the 
same law might extend to other bodies. He took 
the hypothesis as an hypothesis, on the faith of his 

M 



122 INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION. 

own suggestion. Then he proceeded to apply it ; 
that is, to see if the law held good in the facts 
around him. At first, it is well known that some 
miscalculations misled him ; and he found, as he 
thought, the facts run counter to his theory, and 
his theory he abandoned. Nor did he resume it 
till these calculations had been found to be false. 
Then he once more ventured to examine the facts 
again, and he found them confirm his theory. So 
also you must do in every science. Take the gene- - 
ral truths suggested to you by others, and trace 
them in the facts around you. If you would read 
the Bible as a reasoning and inquiring being, take 
the great doctrines of Christianity, as given you in 
the creeds and catechism of the Church, and observe 
how they occur in every page ; hidden in history, im- 
plied in precept, wrought out in types and allegories, 
hinted at in words and sounds, incorporated in per- 
sons — the one same body of truth in an infinite va- 
riety of phenomena. So also -study Ethics. Take from 
Aristotle and from Plato, where they are sanctioned 
by the Church, their fundamental axioms of morals. 
Trace these axioms in all the phenomena before 
you. Read them in history ; develope them in art ; 
follow them into the minute delineations of private 
character and of common life. If they are true, 
you will find them every where. You will delight 
in the pursuit, innocently and inexhaustibly. You 
will use reason without abusing it. You will con- 
firm instead of destroying your belief. You will 
be performing the high work which God has as- 
signed to the reason, of throwing disorder into 
order, and reducing plurality to unity, without 
abandoning the moral duties of obedience, of 
faith, of self-distrust, of respect for others. Your 
exercise will be the same with the rationalist, so 
far as the exercise of reason is concerned ; but it 



CH. X.J SCIENCE NOT TO BE LIMITED. 123 

will not be irrational enough to prefer a suggestion, 
simply because it comes to you not through the 
mouth of a fellow- creature. You will not think, 
like the rationalist, that what other men tell you 
must be false, and what comes into your own head, 
by the working of your own brain, must be true. 

And one more suggestion I will make. Do not 
limit the field of morals. The science of Ethics is 
the science of education. The education of man is 
the education of the whole man ; and man is a 
compound being, with many faculties and various 
actions ; and he is, by permission from God, the 
centre of the world here below ; the source of all 
those operations in it, which do not flow either from 
the fixed, unaltered laws of matter, or from the 
miraculous interpositions of God. How vast and 
how many they are, I need not shew. Man is born 
an infant; by education he may be reared to a 
giant. He is ignorant, and by it may be made 
wise ; sinful, and may become holy ; the prey of 
evil, and may be raised higher than the angels. 
His very body, that fragile casket in which his soul 
is lodged, depends for its preservation on the care 
of man. It is man that subdues nature to him- 
self; that creates a whole universe of art ; that pre- 
serves the treasures of the past ; that anticipates the 
future by prophecy; that binds up societies and 
kingdoms, framing powers unknown to individuals, 
and holding together man with man, and generation 
with generation, in a communion of interest, and 
law, and truth, And this communion is maintained 
by language, which is a cast from the soul itself, 
retaining its finest lineaments, and keeping it con- 
stantly before us, when the soul itself is invisible or 
gone. And the laws by which the mind acts are 
few and universal, buried deep in the constitution 
of its nature, but springing out from thence into all 



124 EXTENT OF THE SCIENCE. 

the multiplicity of its actions. History, therefore, 
and legislation, and economy, and art, and philo- 
logy, and poetry, and metaphysics, even the sci- 
ences of matter as correlatives to the faculties of 
the mind, are to form part of your moral studies. 
If you attempt to restrict them to what an ignorant 
age calls moral, — that is, to laws against murder, 
and theft, and adultery, and false witness, — you will 
know little of the depth of their meaning ; and morals 
will be to you as a slip of knowledge torn from its 
parent stem and planted in a barren soil, as if it 
would grow. No man ever penetrated far into any 
study, but he was carried up at last into principles 
which are the source of all others ; and no man ever 
studied wisely, who stopped short of these depths. 
If you are afraid of depth ; if you think that gene- 
ral principles are useless, because to be stated gene- 
rally they must assume an abstract and mysterious 
character ; if you will deal only with what shallow- 
minded men call practical questions — as if any thing 
could be practical which is not founded on truth, or 
any thing could be true which, if expressed in all 
its fullness, would not seem a mystery and a pro- 
blem, — you are not a fit person to study morals, or 
any other science. Nature has intended you for a 
drudge, not for a leader; to obey others, without 
knowing why and wherefore. Be content with this ; 
it is all you are fit for. And if you attempt to rea- 
son, you will only reason wrongly, and aid in bring- 
ing down the human mind to a poor and degraded 
vulgarity both of thought and action. And be 
assured you will do infinite mischief. Men are 
sick of the shallow, superficial, meagre speculations 
which these practical notions have engendered. 
They want depth, and mystery, and vastness ; and 
if they cannot find them in a true system, they will 
seek for them in the false. If the Christian philo- 



CH. X.] EXTENT OF THE SCIENCE. 125 

sophy of England will not supply them with this 
food for the mind, they will go for it to the anti- 
Christian rationalism of Germany ; and they are 
doing this already. Trace the ruin of states. It be- 
gins with so-called practical politicians ; men with- 
out deep thought, therefore without high minds, 
therefore without boldness of conception, or energy 
of action, or confidence in truth or in themselves. 
Look to the corruptions of religion. They began 
when men lost sight of the mysteries of Christianity, 
and made religion a practical engine for the govern- 
ment of the world. Examine works of art. You 
never had a great painter, or a great architect, or 
a great sculptor, who was not a deep philosopher ; 
whose practice was not founded on abstract theory ; 
whose feelings, if thrown into words, would not have 
been a mysticism. 

Take in, therefore, under the science of Ethics 
the whole range of human operations and of facts 
which are connected with man. Let us not con- 
tinue to have, as we now have, the mutilated, dis- 
severed limbs of a mighty philosophy served up to 
us in fragments ; religion without theology ; theo- 
logy without morals ; duties to man without duties 
to God ; art without science ; feeling without a 
standard of truth ; taste without reason ; politics 
without philosophy ; language without metaphy- 
sics ; metaphysics without practice ; history with- 
out theory ; and physics without end or object, 
save the accumulation of wealth. Thus torn from 
each other, every one must wither away. Bring 
them back and unite them, as the great philoso- 
phers of Greece did, upon one common stem, deeply 
rooted and solidly grown, — the science of the edu- 
cation of man, — and they may once more flourish. 

And let us not be afraid of the reproach which 
led to this unnatural separation, at present prevail- 
M 2 



126 EXTENT OF THE SCIENCE. 

ing. Men were accused of confounding together 
distinct sciences ; of explaining spiritual things by 
material ; of making music a medicine, and govern- 
ment an art of rhetoric, and theology a system of 
metaphysics. And because these things had been 
thus confused, it was thought expedient to separate 
them altogether. This is the practice of man. Put 
him up, says Luther, on one side of his horse, and 
like a drunken peasant he tumbles down on the 
other. He was commanded not to confound two 
things, and he proceeded to divorce them. But it 
is one thing to confuse, and another to connect 
without confusing ; one thing to interpret one stream 
of science by the laws of another, but a very differ- 
ent thing to trace up any one to its highest princi- 
ples, and then follow them down as they branch off 
into a variety of subjects. 

" And God gave Solomon," we are told, "wisdom 
and understanding exceeding much, and largeness 
of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea-shore. 
And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all 
the children of the east country, and all the wisdom 
of Egypt. . . .And he spake three thousand proverbs, 
and his songs were a thousand and five. And he 
spake of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in Leba- 
non even unto the hyssop that springe th out of the 
wall : he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of 
creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of 
all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all 
kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom." 
(1 Kings iv. 29-34). 



CH. XI. J CAPACITIES OF MAN. 127 



CHAPTER XL 

And now, having suggested some general rules for 
the study of Ethics, — rules which have an especial 
reference to the circumstances under which the 
science will be brought before you in the present 
day, — I will proceed to sketch out an outline of 
its chief principles, as they are laid down in Chris- 
tianity. 

To do this, let us once more go back about fif- 
teen centuries, and imagine ourselves standing by 
the side of the cradle of an infant, with a Father of 
the Church and a heathen philosopher standing with 
us, and contemplating the condition and prospects 
of that little child. What is the first thought which 
would strike us all ? Here is a little helpless babe, 
unconscious of our presence, unable to move, or 
think, or reason, more entirely at the mercy of cir- 
cumstances than the young of any brute animal 
dropped from the womb of its mother, and trusted to 
instincts and to Nature ! i\.nd yet in a few, a very 
few years, this babe will become a man. His senses 
may expand to take in a vast range of Nature ; his 
affections be kindled, his impulses roused to grasp 
at every object which comes near him, and to con- 
centrate them all round himself. He may govern 
states, command armies, wield the destinies of mil- 
lions, speak with a voice which shall go down to the 
latest generations, pierce into the past and the future 
with the eye of a prophet, bend down the material 
world to be his slave, enroll himself a denizen of the 
spiritual world, become the companion of sages, the 



128 CAPACITIES OF MAN. 

friend of angels, the imitator of God, and almost a 
God himself. Christian Fathers and heathen philo- 
sophers would both agree in this. 

But they would also agree in a darker thought. 
This infant may become an angel, even more than 
an angel — but he may also become a devil. His 
senses may be opened, but to take in nothing but 
suffering. His affections be inflamed, but with a 
perpetual inextinguishable fever ; his whole soul be 
the slave of impulses, like a weak, helpless woman, 
tossed about in mockery by the buffetings of a crowd. 
His whole life may be a straining, impotent and 
convulsive, after a good which he cannot reach, or 
which turns into ashes in his grasp. He may go- 
vern states and command armies, but so as to bring 
down on his head the blood and the curses of man- 
kind. He may be known to latest generations as a 
by-word, or the father of evil. He may look back 
into the past, but so as to feel nothing but remorse ; 
and forward, but only to despair. Instead of com- 
manding the material world, he may be its slave and 
victim ; instead of citizenship in a heavenly polity, 
he may be placed within sight of it, but excluded 
from any share in its blessing ; the companion of 
sinners and evil spirits, the abhorred of angels, the 
criminal under the scourge of an offended and in- 
exorable Judge. Which of these two pictures shall 
be realised, and what part is man to take in rescuing 
him from the evil, and ensuring for him the good ? 

The heathen would talk of education. He would 
insist on the need of watching over the^child, 
punishing his early bad propensities, developing his 
better faculties, surrounding him with inducements 
to good; appealing to his reason, forming him as 
man by man, after the best model which man can 
supply, and by the best rules of human experience. 
The Christian also would say the same. But all 



CH. XI.] IMPORTANCE OF FORMS. 129 

this, he would also say, must be vain, without some- 
thing else. Before any thing can be done, or hoped, 
a ceremony must be performed over the child. 
What is it ? 

And I propose to go back fifteen hundred years, 
— not as if the same ceremony in its essential features 
would not be insisted on at present — has not been 
performed oyer each of us w r ho are members of the 
Christian Church, — but because at that period it 
was more minutely developed, and contained more 
distinctly the types and symbols of all the great 
ethical truths which Christianity implies. It con- 
tained them in outward forms. And, before they 
are described, let me caution you — you, the young 
reader, — how you are misled by a foolish language, 
common in the present day, and call them idle 
forms, and silly superstitions. If you are ever to 
understand what education is, and to be capable of 
applying it, you must learn to think of forms, and 
ceremonies, and outward symbols, in a very differ- 
ent light from that in which ignorant men regard 
them now. 

How great is the importance of forms in educa- 
tion, you may learn from the multitude of forms 
imposed by God himself in the Jewish law. What 
the precise object of them was, we may not be able 
to see ; but they could not have been contemplated 
by God as idle, superstitious ceremonies. Look 
again at civil society : what are its magistrates, its 
laws, its punishments, its modes of procedure, its 
buildings, dresses, conventional privileges, titles, 
precedences, badges, etiquette, prescriptive usages, 
but forms, and outward symbols of certain great 
truths enshrined in them ? Take away the symbols, 
and what will become of the truths ? Why keep 
up the state of kings ? Why clothe our judges in 
ermine ? Why raise palaces for the makers and 



130 MEANING OF FORMS. 

interpreters of our laws ? Why fix badges of hon- 
our ? Why lay down technical rules for behaviour ? 
Let us take the opportunity of examining generally 
the theory of forms. For we are living in an age 
which depises them, and to this contempt we owe 
no little part of our moral evils. 

By a form, then, is meant some outward act or 
object, intended to represent an inward spiritual 
meaning. The king's crown is a symbol of his 
supreme power. The priest's white dress, of the 
purity which should clothe his life. Kneeling is 
the form of devotion. Black is the sign of sorrow. 
Uncovering the head is a form of respect. The 
external usages of society are forms for refinement 
of mind and general benevolence. And that these 
forms have a very close connexion with the moral 
nature of man, and especially with his education, 
you must easily perceive. When men wish to de- 
stroy the respect due to royal authority, they be- 
gin by stripping kings of their external splendour. 
When religion is to be made a matter of indiffer- 
ence, churches are turned into barns, and church- 
services denuded of all solemn ceremonials. When 
the French revolutionists wished to extirpate from 
their country the very thought of their monarch, 
they obliterated the name first. And when Almighty 
God introduced into his fallen universe a new 
spirit, to recall it to himself, he enshrined it in a 
visible Church, in the forms of human bodies, of an 
established society, of outward ceremonies, which 
may be as necessary to the maintenance of his Spirit 
among men, as the body is necessary to the preser- 
vation of the soul. 

In dwelling at length upon this subject, do not 
suppose that you are digressing from the main sub- 
ject of Christian Ethics. On each side of Chris- 
tianity there are two schools of distinct ethical 



CII. XI.] OPPOSITE DOCTRINES OF FORMS. 131 

characters, differing in their views of education and 
fundamental principles of philosophy. And in no 
point is this difference more palpable, or in the pre- 
sent day more carefully to be observed, than in their 
notions of the nature of forms. Without rightly 
seeing their errors, we shall be liable to be misled 
by them. Without rightly appreciating forms, and 
comprehending their use, we shall not understand 
the most essential laws of Christian Ethics. 

One of these schools, then, considers forms as 
every thing. They would multiply, maintain them 
strictly, compel a servile obedience to them, without 
regard to the spirit which ought to pervade them, 
and of which they are to be the types and symbols. 
Thus they would think much of the outward honour 
due to regal power, and which implies the relation 
between a father and viceroy of God on one side, 
and a child on the other, — such being the true rela- 
tion between a king and his people, and from which 
the external forms of royalty were developed, — but 
they would pay little attention to cherishing the 
real spirit of a father in the king, and of a child in 
the people. They would load religion with rituals 
and ceremonies, betokening awe in the worshipper, 
holiness in the priest, power and glory and goodness 
in Almighty God. But the real life-blood of reli- 
gion, the real awe and holiness of spirit, intended to 
be embodied in these ceremonies, they would permit 
to decay. 

Again, in society, they would be satisfied with 
creating a number of technical rules, by which men 
of good taste and breeding might be distinguished ; 
minute ceremonies and formalities, implying respect 
for rank, benevolence to companions, abstinence from 
gross offences, from selfishness, and the like ; such as 
uncovering the head to superiors or to females, using 
the ordinary titles, subscribing ourselves in terms of 



132 OPPOSITE DOCTRINES OF FORMS. 

deference, giving precedency to each other, and a 
multitude of other minute forms, each implying a 
virtuous feeling within, — but for the real virtuous 
feeling they would care little. Satisfied with an 
external refinement, they would overlook the real 
goodness of the heart, from which they are pre- 
sumed to flow. Like the Egyptians, they embalm 
the body, wrap it up in fine linen, paint it, gild it, 
stick it up in their houses before their eyes, and 
scarcely seem to know that the life is vanished. 

The other school is just the reverse. The mo- 
ment they see the spirit is departed, that moment 
they destroy the form. They profess to think wholly 
of the spirit — they talk largely of pure virtue ; of 
reason disentangled from the fetters of superstition ; 
of liberty ; of the superiority of mind to body ; of the 
uselessness, and worse than uselessness, of the hypo- 
crisy, of preserving forms when men have ceased to 
feel them. They describe forms as mere helps to 
the ignorant ; as contrivances of ambitious men, for 
the purpose of enslaving the imagination of their 
subjects. They think them purely arbitrary ; that 
they may be changed at will ; that wise men may do 
without them ; and that they never should be em- 
ployed, except in condescending compassion to the 
infirmity of weak minds, To this school (observe 
how deeply the principle spreads through the whole 
system of life) — to this school belong all those who 
despise established institutions, hereditary succession 
in governments, positive laws, adherence to prece- 
dents in practice ; who think that all religion con- 
sists in feeling, without obedience ; that religious 
doctrines may be left free to the reason of the wor- 
shipper, without technical creeds to confine them ; 
that religious worship is only fettered and degraded 
by fixed formularies, seasons, modes, and ceremo- 
nies ; who measure right not by positive enactments, 



CH.X1.] CHARACTER OF THE BAD SCHOOL. 133 

but by vague calculations of advantage, or still 
vaguer sentiments of equity ; who in their relations 
with man set at nought the received usages of so- 
ciety, follow their own caprices, demand indulgence 
for individual license ; who in reasoning will receive 
nothing on authority and testimony, but measure 
every thing by internal evidence instead of external, 
or, as they call it, by its truth, that is, by its ac- 
cordance with their own sentiments ; who on the 
same principle build up hypotheses and theories 
without any reference to external facts ; who in 
works of art consider that all technical rules, all 
attention to accuracy of imitation and minute de- 
tails, may be dispensed with — that the imagination 
may range widely and fantastically, and create mon- 
sters at will ; who in language believe that words 
are mere arbitrary conventional signs, which have 
no deep hidden connexion with the thoughts which 
they express ; that the body, again, is a mere shell, 
in which the soul is confined, and not mysteriously 
blended with it in one being ; who indulge in what 
is called diffusive benevolence, in plans of general 
distant good, while they overlook the plain homely 
duties of life that lie before their feet ; who regard 
the material world as a fabric convenient for the 
habitation of man, ministering to his wants, beauti- 
ful to his eye, but cannot read it as a book full in 
every part of a mysterious symbolical knowledge. 
The very notion of symbolism is to them a folly. 
Tell them of great consequences lurking hid in 
trifles — of vast truths intimated in enigmas — of a 
spiritual atmosphere of thought and feeling pervad- 
ing the whole world of sense, so that a spiritual- 
ised eye 

" Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing"--- 

and they call it mysticism and fanaticism. In the 



134 END OF THE BAD SCHOOL. 

same manner they read the Bible. It is to them, 
especially the Old Testament, a bare chronicle of 
facts. Its types, and prophecies, and deep Christian 
mysteries, shadowed ont in casual occurrences and 
petty regulations, they cannot see. They take a 
broad general view — enlarged, they presume to call 
it — of the divine word and dispensation ; and all 
which does not fall within this outline, they reject 
as insignificant. 

Now, what is the inevitable end of a school like 
this ? They begin, as the Puritans of old began, 
with exalting spirit over matter, the soul over the 
body, the thing signified over the form which signi- 
fies it, until they lose sight wholly of the inferior 
objects, and undervalue forms altogether. This done, 
they lose sight also of the spirit ; and they end in 
becoming wholly materialists. They alter forms of 
government, to realise some imaginary perfection. 
They are unable to attain this perfection ; and they 
soon succumb to the first new form which a tyranny 
may establish. They set at nought forms of religion 
with a view to promote piety ; and without them 
piety soon dies : and as they cannot do without some 
appearance of religion, again they take up some new 
form, and adhere to it with a species of idolatry. 
They abandon accurate imitation in the arts, in 
order to embody some elevated conception beyond 
and above rule. It eludes their grasp, and they be- 
come servile mannerists, and nothing more. They 
despise the formalities of society, and they come to 
have " a way of their oivn." In one word, neglect of 
forms appointed by authority ends necessarily in a 
bigoted subjection to forms invented of ourselves. 
And instead of reaching a higher degree of spiritu- 
ality without them, all spirituality is finally lost ; as 
ascetics, who aimed at mental purity in a total sepa- 
ration from their bodies came at last to justify all 



CII.XI.] TRUE THEORY OF FORMS. 135 

kinds of sensuality, as if the body, however polluted, 
could not affect the mind — as atheists are invariably 
superstitious — as innovators are always bigots — as 
democrat is but another name for tyrant — as hatred 
for the ancient forms of the Catholic Church pre- 
served in popery led naturally to the formalities 
of puritanism, but formalities which contained no 
truths, and which had no sanction but human in- 
vention. All moral error runs in a circle. Follow 
one extreme in order to avoid another, and it will 
infallibly bring you round to the very evil from 
which you were endeavouring to escape. 

What, then, is the true theory of forms ? It is 
the one which neither maintains forms without spirit, 
nor spirit without forms. Man is made up of soul 
and of body ; and spiritual truths and laws can no 
more be preserved in the world without bodily forms 
in which to incorporate them, than the soul of man in 
this earth can act or exist apart from his body. And 
as the body is the type and symbol of the soul, forms 
are the natural shadows and delineations of the spi- 
rit. But forms are even more immediately an object 
for our care than spirit. You must clothe and feed 
the body of an infant, before you talk to it of virtue 
or vice. You must lay down rules for men to act 
on, before they follow them from principle. You 
must rear your scaffold before you build your walls. 
Spirit is the end — forms are the means. But Aris- 
totle will tell us, 1 that not only is " the end greater 
than the means," but in one point of view the 
" means are greater than the end ;" since without 
them the end cannot be obtained. 

Whence then the importance of forms ? First, our 
great business in this life is to learn the attributes and 
workings of the minds which surround us ; — of hu- 
man minds on earth — of the Divine mind in heaven. 
1 Rhetoric. 



136 FORMS REPRESENT THE INVISIBLE. 

Learning these, we understand our relations to them; 
on this our feelings and affections to them follow — 
from our affections flow our actions — upon our actions 
are moulded our habits — our habits constitute our 
perfection. But how is this knowledge to be attained 
without some outward form ? For the minds them- 
selves are hidden from the human eye. Language, 
therefore, and the lineaments of the face, and out- 
ward actions, are the forms through which we read 
them. And this is the first use of forms, or " out- 
ward visible signs*' of inward spiritual meanings, 
addressing themselves to the senses. They are the 
necessary interpreters of the mind, which without 
them we could not study. And the same is the case 
with societies. We must love our country, our fa- 
mily, our church, our neighbourhood. Now all these 
are abstractions. We never see them with our eyes ; 
and common minds cannot realise their existence 
without some sign or symbol of their presence. 
Hence the moment a society is formed, it requires 
some place of meeting, a building, dress, or watch- 
word, generally some individual person to represent 
it, to make it visible, to express its character, and 
gather round it the affections of the several mem- 
bers. Without such outward forms, we could have 
no steady or clear perception of our relations to so- 
cieties, any more than to individual minds. And with 
the loss of this relation we should lose some of the 
most important duties and virtues of our nature. 

But the human mind is also to be educated. For 
this purpose it must have placed over it constantly 
certain permanent grand rules of right, — high truths 
which surpass its comprehension, until it is perfect 
itself. Without such a high standard drawing up 
human nature to itself, human nature would soon 
sink to a low vulgar level. You cannot draw up 
trees except by planting larger trees about them, 



CH. XI,] PRESERVE THE STANDARD OF TRUTH. 137 

nor rear infants except by the aid of adults, nor 
form weak men to heroism except by the constant 
presence and encouragement of heroes. But how is 
this standard to be maintained ? Shall it be trusted 
to the spontaneous goodness of human beings ? Shall 
we make a good man, and leave his goodness alone 
to inspire the same spirit into others ? But he is 
frail and fallible. His character is not permanent. 
He is but an individual. To display his goodness 
he himself must invent some forms, and must incul- 
cate them on others. Why not establish forms in- 
dependent of his personal character ? Let them be 
types and representatives of the goodness which he 
ought to possess. Have forms of prayer, which may 
teach men how they ought to pray, whether the 
priest who offers them up pray properly or not. 
Enact laws, which good men would enact, whether 
the legislator be good or bad. Surround authority 
with signs of respect, which imply that it comes 
from God, whether it be wielded according to the 
will of God, or not. Let there be a constant wit- 
ness to truth and justice and holiness placed before 
the eyes of man; embodied in objects distinct from 
men themselves, which may survive when man be- 
comes corrupt ; testify when they are silent ; in- 
fluence when they are powerless ; recall when they 
have ceased to care for the wanderings of their 
flock. This is another use of forms. They secure 
truths, both moral and intellectual, from perishing 
with the decay of human goodness ; just as the 
human body retains the vital principle, though we 
sleep, or faint, or become weak and sickly, lie in 
a trance, fall into a delirium, are paralysed, or 
decrepit. 

So, also, forms are necessary to preserve the 
memory of these truths from one generation to 
another. Thus, our liturgy has preserved to us the 
n 2 



138 GIVE CERTAINTY TO KNOWLEDGE. 

doctrines of the Church, though the men, of whom 
the Church has been composed, have successively 
died away ; just as the atoms of the body evapo- 
rate, and yet the body still continues. So men raise 
buildings to perpetuate the memory of transactions. 
So property is entailed, that the family may be pre- 
served, though the several heads of it disappear 
one after the other. So, in our English consti- 
tution, the king is said never to die. 

Another use of forms is remarkable. Men's 
feelings, you may observe, and their thoughts, are 
of a very changeable nature. It is difficult to re- 
member and retrace them. We are never quite sure 
that we felt exactly in this way, entertained precisely 
this notion. Try and recall the state of your mind 
at any one period, and you will see how hard it is 
to feel certain about it. Now, there are many cases 
in life, when it is of the utmost importance that we 
should be sure and certain that we have done some- 
thing, or received something. We make a promise. 
If we were at liberty to forget this, or feel a doubt 
of it, the promise would be good for nothing. Or 
another person makes a promise to us. Unless we 
are quite confident of the fact, we cannot act upon 
it. For this reason, in all such cases, men require 
some sign, some outward form or mark, which may 
remain, when the impression on the mind has passed 
away. And this must evidently be something ad- 
dressing itself to the outward senses. For the senses, 
remember, (it is an axiom of the greatest import- 
ance in Ethics), are the most uniform, least fallible, 
most impressive, most durable channels, through 
which knowledge is conveyed to us. Hence all 
bad ethical schools, such as the Grecian sophists, 
the sceptics, and Hume, have endeavoured to un- 
dermine our trust in them. Christianity, on the 
other hand, recognises their validity, as greater 



CH. XI.] IMPRESS THE MEND. 139 

than that of either our imperfect understanding, or 
our corrupted consciences ; and rests its evidence on 
the testimony of the senses to miracles. The Church 
is commanded to witness only "what it has seen and 
heard.'" 1 This sign, then, may be words ; as when 
a man declares his intentions before witnesses. Or 
it may be addressed to the eye, as more durable, 
and less liable to deception : hence written docu- 
ments — hence treaties were engraved upon pillars — 
pledges are given for promises — symbols or tallies 
are invented, by which the possessor of one knows 
that the possessor of the other will act to him in a 
particular way. Hence God vouchsafed to give the 
sign of the rainbow to Noah ; to fix the sign of cir- 
cumcision, as a pledge of his covenant with Abra- 
ham. Forms and outward signs of inward feelings 
act in this point of view as in the case of the lady, 
who dreamed she saw a ghost who touched her 
wrist and burned it. She woke up, it is said, and 
thought it a dream ; but there was the mark upon 
her wrist, and she believed it real. 

One more use of forms and outward acts is, 
that they impress the mind. A man makes a reso- 
lution secretly. But if he writes it down, or in any 
way embodies it in some action, or work, he feels 
much more obliged to keep it. 

Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem, 
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta ndelibus.— -Horace. 

How little ordinary men think of crimes, which 
have been merely planned in the heart, but never 
accomplished in action ! Even the holy Church, 
with all its warnings and condemnations against 
sins of thought, distinguishes between them and 
sins of act. She deems it a providential blessing 
from God, if He saves us from committing bad 

1 See the Acts, passim. 



140 THE CHURCH USES FORMS. 

acts, even when we had deliberately planned them : 
and on this very principle, that the outward act is 
something worse even than the inward thought. It 
is, in fact, that which finishes and puts the seal to a 
whole train of antecedent acts ; as the fruit, without 
which the tree is valueless, is the consummation of 
the planting, the growth, the blossoming, the cir- 
culation of the sap, the gradual ripening, — which 
occupied such . a space before it, but which, apart 
from it, have little meaning. How many years of 
decay precede the fall of a building ; — but unless, 
at the very last, one little atom gave way, the fall 
would never happen. How deeply is the constitu- 
tion sapped in every part by a long sickness ; but 
it is the " last drop of blood rushing back to the 
heart,'! which, says the poet, " extinguishes the rays 
of mans setting life." 

€tti de Kap6lav edpa/se Kponoficup't]? 
arayoov, are K.al dopi 7rruxTlfj.ai9 
tjvvaviirei ftiov dvvros avyds. 

Agamem. 1090. 

Follow out this law of our present nature, and you 
may see something of the importance of an external 
act, in which men embody and put the coping-stone 
to their resolutions, as well as of an external impres- 
sion made upon their senses by an outward form. 

Upon all these grounds, you will not be surprised 
if you find that the Church commences her work of 
education with an outward form ; if, being deeply 
impressed with certain great truths, under which she 
is acting, she represents them in a variety of ways; is 
not content with keeping them in her own mind, nor 
with expressing them to you through the forms of 
words only, (for words are as much forms as acts) ; 
but embodies them in forms addressed to the eye, 
and pours out her inward spirit and thought into 
shape and sight, as the vital principle in man throws 



CII. XI.] FORMS NATURAL AND NECESSARY. 141 

itself forth into the organisation of the body, cre- 
ating by its own power an outward material fabric, 
with which to clothe itself, and become sensible to 
man ; and as the vitality of the seed manifests its 
presence by springing up into a vast development 
of boughs, and leaves, and fruit, and flowers, by 
which, and which alone, we can learn its existence 
and its nature. It would be a hard and unnatural 
compulsion, which should prohibit a spiritual being 
from thus giving vent to his feeling, whether others 
would be affected by it or not. In a desert island, 
a single shipwrecked sailor would need, and would 
use forms, as the necessary accompaniment of his 
internal emotions. He would kneel when he prayed 
— look up when he was grateful — set apart times 
and places for devotion. Let his body, and all that 
was affected by his body, follow the natural im- 
pulses, and go with his soul, just as the vessel obeys 
the movement of the will of the steersman. Divorce 
the two, and you separate matter and mind ; and 
the separation is fatal. Or rather, you cannot se- 
parate them. For you cannot have forms of any 
kind, without some meaning implied in them, some 
spirit which they will represent to the observer, 
whether it is intended or not. A man refuses to 
uncover his head to his sovereign, lest the form 
should speak servility. He keeps his hat on. which 
is also a form ; and the bystanders cannot but in- 
terpret it as a mark of contempt. And, on the other 
hand, you cannot have spirit without forms ; or a 
good feeling without good action ; because it is the 
very nature of feeling and of mind to act, to make 
itself visible, to diffuse itself; and, to do this, it 
must generate forms. Thus, good works are the 
forms of faith. Kind actions, words, and looks, are 
the forms of benevolence. Works of art are the forms 
of imagination. The shape and direction given to 



142 EFFICACY OF FORMS. 

the mind by itself, are the forms of the virtuous or 
vicious principle by which it is governed* 

But, once more : the forms which the Church uses 
in education are not " only signs of profession, and 
marks of difference;" 1 — they are something more. 
Let us see, if in this also there is any thing like our 
common experience ; whether, in our daily little 
outward forms, the merest insignificant acts are not 
constantly, under certain conditions, the mightiest 
of engines, real instruments and channels for con- 
veying to us great good, which without them can- 
not be obtained. A man enters into a bank; he 
presents a cheque for three millions of money. 2 The 
clerk takes the bit of paper, looks at it, refuses to 
pay the money. Why ? because a little almost im- 
perceptible mark is wanting in the signature of the 
name ; which the owner of the money had agreed 
to make, and which the clerk does not discern. It 
is pointed out, and the money is paid. An army 
is ranged in order of battle. They stand perfectly 
motionless. One blast of a trumpet, and the whole 
mass is in motion. Swords are brandished ; cannons 
are fired ; troops charge ; the battle is won ; per- 
haps an empire saved or lost ; all depending on that 
blast of the trumpet. Why? because the commander 
had appointed that signal, and the soldiers believed 
in him and it. Napoleon places himself at a little 
wooden table, in the palace of Fontainebleau. In 
less than a minute, he scrawls a few black lines on 
a bit of paper. The whole French empire, with its 
millions of subjects, millions of wealth, the destinies 
of Europe, of innumerable generations, all change 
at once ; just as the fate of an individual would be 
changed, if his own head could be cut off from his 

1 See Articles of Religion xxvii. xxviii. 

2 Such a cheque is preserved in the Bank of England no-w- 
as a curiosity. It was drawn, I believe, during the French war. 



CH.XI.] EFFICACY OF FORMS. 143 

body, and another could be fixed on it. They pass 
from one master to another, by virtue of that little 
signature, attached to that little scrap of paper. 
Why r because Napoleon has agreed that such sig- 
nature shall be the sign of his abdication, and the 
allied sovereigns believe him. If either condition 
were wanting the signature would be as worthless 
as any marks which a child scrawls on his first 
copy-book. There is an immense fleet lying at an- 
chor at Spithead, all motionless ; every eye strained 
to watch something at the top of one mast. A bit of 
wood on the top of a tower moves up. Instantly 
all hands are at work. Anchors are weighed. Sails 
are unfurled. The fleet is sailing, it knows not 
whither. Why r because the admiral has hoisted a 
flag ; and the admiral has hoisted a flag because that 
bit of wood on the top of the tower put itself in 
motion ; and that bit of wood was put in motion 
because a plain ordinary sort of gentleman, sitting 
in a room in London, moved about his tongue and 
his throat for a second, and produced a few strange 
sounds ; and these sounds he produced because he 
saw on a bit of paper, just put into his hand, certain 
little black marks, as big as a phrs-head — perhaps 
this one, no — instead of this other, yes — which con- 
veyed to him the news of some mighty revolution in 
another quarter of the globe, which made the safety 
of Europe depend on the sailing of this fleet. 

Signs, therefore, and forms — conventional signs 
between two parties, when one party appoints, and 
the other agrees to acknowledge or believe in them, 
— are instruments of incalculable power. They are 
means of transferring from one person to another 
the whole power of which he is master. Nothing 
is too great for them to convey. A bit of paper 
will carry a whole world. And on this use of signs 
political economists pride themselves. They boast 



144 EFFICACY OF FORMS. 

that they have now established a system founded 
upon credit, (a Christian might call it faith), by 
which one party promises to abide by his word, 
when that word has been given by some signal 
agreed on, (the smaller and less perceptible to com- 
mon eyes the better), and the other promises to 
trust him, and act upon that signal whenever it is 
recognised. Thus it is, they say, that the immense 
activity of commerce is now carried on with such 
silence, rapidity, ease, and gigantic results. Blest 
paper-money has accomplished this great good. 
Wherever secrecy, certainty, extent of influence, 
rapid movement, vast consequences, are required 
and implied, you must, they say, have recourse to 
little secret mysterious signs, only intelligible to 
those who fix and use them. The discovery of them 
is the grand invention of modern days. 

They are undoubtedly right. And they will 
recognise at once the wisdom of following a similar 
plan in all other cases, where great transfers or gifts 
are to be made, which it may be expedient to keep 
from the common eye, or even impossible to shew. 
All that they will require will be, that a positive 
appointment of certain signs for the purpose should 
be made by the person who is proprietor of these 
great gifts ; that he should be a "person of honour,'' 
true, that is, to his word ; and then, (without which, 
all is useless), that the party receiving them should 
give credit, or in less commercial language, should 
put faith in the giver, and recognise the sign as the 
channel through which he has agreed to act. 

If you, reader, know anything of that Chris- 
tianity which you profess, you will know to what I 
have been alluding. You will know that the Church 
educates not merely by words, by advice, and in- 
struction ; but mainly and chiefly by communica- 
ting to you certain spiritual gifts of immeasurable 



CH.XI.] SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH. 145 

value, " unseen, but not unfelt." And these it pro- 
fesses to communicate through the means of certain 
outward acts and symbols : " outward visible signs 
of an inward and spiritual grace given to us ; or- 
dained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we 
receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof.'' 
Its great instruments of good are the sacraments. 
And these sacraments, 1500 years ago, were ad- 
ministered with many more symbolic forms than 
they are at present ; especially the sacrament of 
baptism, which is the beginning of your Christian 
education ; the act, in which are condensed all the 
great truths of Christian Ethics ; and to which, 
therefore, let us go back Our own forefathers, at 
the English Reformation, did indeed cut off from 
that act many outward forms with which the ancient 
Church had surrounded it ; because those outward 
forms had been abused : but they did not deny the 
truths which the forms were intended to convey. 
And we may read these truths more clearly and 
legibly in those, symbolic rites than in any human 
words. 



146 EXORCISM. 



CHAPTER XII. 

My object, then, is to point out the ethical views 
exhibited by the ancient Catholic Church in its 
celebration of Baptism, and preserved by our own 
branch of it, though we have not retained all the 
forms by which they were expressed, — views respect- 
ing the condition of human nature, the end to which 
it should be brought, and the means of educating it. 
And having prepared you, I hope, not to turn away 
in ridicule from what silly and ignorant men would 
now be disposed to call superstitious mummeries, J 
will take in order the chief ceremonies which the 
Church would have performed over an infant, when 
she commenced its education. 

The first is one which, in this age of miscalled 
enlightenment, when men can scarcely bring them- 
selves to believe that there are either angels or 
spirits, much less that there are spirits of evil about 
us, will startle them the most. 

The Church would have first taken the infant, 
and solemnly exorcised it; that is, by prayer, and 
breathing upon it, and making the sign of the cross 
upon the forehead, and imposition of hands, it would 
endeavour to free it from the power of an evil spirit, 
to which its birth subjected it. " Per exorcismum 
contra diabolum vindicatur." 1 "No one is to be 
admitted into the Church," says Cyprian, 2 " unless 
they have first been exorcised and baptised, — nisi 
exorcizati et baptizati prius fuerint." To purge 
from the devil, " purget a diabolo," is the expres- 
i Fulgent. Opera, p. 606. 2 Concil. Carthag. p. 232. 



CH. XII.] EXORCISM. 147 

sion of another writer. 1 "Purgatio exorcismi," "the 
fire of exorcism,' ' " the driving away the unclean 
spirit," are other terms for the same thing. " When 
any one comes to the sacrament of baptism, whe- 
ther he be an infant or adult, they are not admitted 
to the fountain of life, before by exorcisms and in- 
sufflations of the clergy the unclean spirit is driven 
from them.'" 2 "Receive the right of exorcism," says 
St. Cyril, " with solemnity. When thou art exor- 
cised, when thou art breathed on, think it a means 

of salvation, o-wth^/o. <toi to Tt^ay^cx, vopurov Eivai." 3 

We are not at all concerned to defend either 
the ancient Catholic Church, who retained this prac- 
tice of exorcism, which our Lord and his apostles 
had practised themselves, nor our own English re- 
formers, who rejected it, as not being essential to 
the sacrament of baptism, and liable to superstitious 
abuses. It would be far better for us all, if we were 
more superstitious than we are ; for superstition is 
better than indifference ; fearing God too much is 
wiser than not fearing him at all ; having too keen 
and deep a sense of spiritual mysteries around us 
is a more exalted frame of mind than believing in 
nothing but senseless matter. But with this we have 
nothing to do. The ancient Church did practise 
exorcism ; and therefore the facts which exorcism 
implies were parts of her ethical creed. And what 
does it imply ? 

Now there is a fundamental problem, which 
meets us not only at every step in common life, but 
at every search into human nature, — the origin of 
evil. You cannot take up an ethical treatise of any 
kind, ancient or modern, heathen or Christian, with- 

1 Petr. Chrysolog. serm. cv. p. 277. 

2 Gennad. de Dogmat. Eccles, c. xxi.,-—Oper. August, t. iii. 
p. 200. 

3 Praefat. ad Catechum, n. v. p. 7. 



148 OEIGIN OF EVIL. 

out its running up in some way into this question. 
And exorcism, I do not say, explains it, but contains 
the answer to it which was given by the Catholic 
Church, delivering that answer from the lips of 
Almighty God. 

That there are such things in the world as plea- 
sure and pain, good and evil, happiness and misery, 
virtue and vice, creation and destruction, improve- 
ment and decay ; that, in fact, the whole system of 
the world is built on the antithesis or contrast of 
these two principles, we all know. What are Ethics, 
but rules for avoiding evil ? what education, but a 
process of raising men from evil to good ? But 
how the world came to be framed upon these two 
principles, and not upon one, has been the per- 
plexity of human reason ever since it first began to 
work. That we are formed to like and to follow 
the one class of things, to dislike and fly from the 
other, is also evident. And if we had framed a 
world (so we idly dare to think), we should have 
excluded all evil ; and therefore we cannot under- 
stand why an alt wise and almighty Creator has 
admitted it. 

It would be idle to enumerate all the modes by 
which ethical writers, while they acknowledged the 
phenomenon, have endeavoured to account for it; 
that is, to reduce it under some acknowledged laws 
of their own experience. Some have ventured to 
attribute the creation of the world to two distinct 
beings, the one good, and the other evil. Of these, 
some, as the Manichees, have made these two co- 
equal and co-eternal. Others, as the Oriental sects, 
of more acute understandings, being compelled to 
trace up all things to some one cause, acknowledge 
a Supreme Being, the Author of good, at the head 
of all things, before whom the evil power will be 
finally subdued ; but why it is permitted to exist at 



CH. XII.] THEORIES OF ORIGIN OF EVIL. 149 

present, they do not explain. Others, as Plato, have 
conceived that the matter out of which the universe 
was made was inherently of a vicious and intract- 
able nature. Others, as the Gnostics, that the crea- 
tion is the work of an inferior angel, not of the 
supreme God. Others, as the Stoics, and many 
modern Englishmen, have perceived that this in no 
way removes the difficulty ; for what a supreme 
authority permits in an inferior agent must be con- 
sidered as emanating from itself. They have there- 
fore denied the existence of evil ; have made it all 
conducive to good ; have imagined a vast system of 
operations, of which we can only see a part, but 
which, if we could see the whole, would lose all 
appearance of disorder, and confusion, and evil ; 
just as a masterly picture, which close to the eye 
appears a chaos of rude colour, when seen at a pro- 
per distance falls into shape and beauty. Others, 
again, have thought it best to escape from, the diffi- 
culty of reconciling the existence of evil in creation 
with the existence of an all-wise and ail-good Crea- 
tor, by practically denying the existence of such a 
Creator at all ; among these were the Epicureans. 
Fate, Chance, Necessity, or a Deity indifferent to 
man, or pure Atheism, have been their refuge. And 
some few have even dared to overlook the existence 
of good in the world, and blasphemously imagined the 
supreme God himself to be a being delighting in evil. 
That there is, then, evil in the world — moral 
evil, sin and punishment, as well as suffering and 
decay — all ethical schools are agreed ; even those 
which affect to deny it, by asserting its ultimate 
tendency to be good. Imperfection in the parts of 
a system may be necessary to the perfection of the 
whole, as Pope, and Shaftesbury, and archbishop 
King suppose ; but it is still imperfection, still evil, 
though balanced by greater good. It is something 
o 2 



150 EVIL A POWER. 

which requires explanation or apology : and this is 
enough. 

But it is, moreover, a Poicer ; something which 
domineers over us, from which it is most hard, 
in many cases impossible, to escape ; which meets 
us when we do not expect it ; which lies in wait 
for us secretly ; whose work is to destroy us ; 
from which our nature shrinks with dread and 
loathing ; of which we may become the slaves, but 
cannot by any effort make ourselves the friends, so 
as to acquiesce and take pleasure in it. And at 
times we make an ineffectual struggle ; raise up a 
weak and paralysed arm against it, or rather fight 
convulsively without aim or purpose. But it over- 
powers us with ease ; and every time we fall, we 
are less able to rise, until we are finally mastered, 
and then comes death. So it is with the evil of the 
body, — sickness and pain. So it is with the evil of 
the soul, — temptation and sin. So it is with the evil 
of the mind, — ignorance and error. So it is with the 
evil of the outward world, — the blight, the drought, 
the famine, the whirlwind, the torrent, the tempest, 
the pestilence, the decay of age, the ravages of vio- 
lence, the preying of one thing on another in a 
" creation made subject to vanity" (Bom. viii. 20). 
And so it is with the evil of societies, — lawlessness, 
abuse of power, injustice, selfishness, mutability, the 
loss of principles, invasion, treachery, accumulation 
of wealth, indulgence in luxuries, which are the ruin 
of man in states. In every case there is a power 
which is not man's, which is man's enemy, which 
man may well dread, which he must battle with, to 
which he is a slave, from which, within the range 
of his senses, he has none to deliver him. 

And this Power is not a mere mechanical action 
— it is a Spirit and a Person — a Spirit, for we can- 
not see it, except in its effects, as we cannot see the 



CH. XII.] PERSONALITY OF THE EVIL POWER. 151 

mind which guides the body, nor the life which 
organises the tree, nor the ruling principle which 
governs the nation, nor God, who governs the world ; 
and yet we know them to exist, because there are 
effects around us which could not proceed except 
from a power exterior to and above them. 

But the peculiarity of the Catholic doctrine re- 
garding this Power of evil is its personality. Of 
personality, you, the young reader, may not have at 
present any distinct notion. But I will endeavour 
to explain it at once, because it occupies a most 
important place, — it is almost the corner-stone in 
the science of Ethics. 

The whole universe, then, is divided into two 
classes — persons and things. All bad systems of 
religion, of morals, of politics, of art, endeavour 
to convert every thing into either persons without 
things, or things without persons. The Catholic 
doctrine does, what I have told you all true systems 
will do. It believes both in persons and in things, 
distinguishing without dividing, and combining 
without confusing them. Let us explain it more 
clearly. What is the difference between a stone 
and a worm ; a slave and a servant ; a hammer or 
saw, and a slave ? The stone is a thing ; the worm, 
in some sense, a person, — the slave, in one sense, a 
thing ; the servant a person, — the saw a thing ; the 
slave, as compared with it, a 'person. Now, think 
what a difference exists in our mode of viewing and 
dealing with these two classes. You tread on a stone, 
break it in fragments, and no one charges you with 
an immoral act. But tread on a worm, and it be- 
comes cruelty. Where slavery exists in its fullest 
extent, and the slave is considered as a thing — as 
the property of his master, or, as Aristotle calls him, 1 

1 Polit. lib.i. c. 1. 



152 NATURE OF PERSONALITY. 

a living machine, e^d^ov opyavov — a master may 
sell, scourge, maim, kill him, with the same indiffer- 
ence and impunity that he would crush and throw 
away a reed. Where a hammer or a saw is a thing, 
and no person is connected with it but yourself, you 
may do with it as you choose. But the moment a 
person comes into view, whose property it is, your 
treatment of it may become theft, or wrong, and 
you will be punished for it. In one word, all moral 
affections, all notions of right and wrong, justice 
and injustice, of duties, and rights, and laws, and 
law-givers, depend on our relations to persons, and 
not to things. Turn a thing into a person, as when 
you shew us that what we believed to be a wax 
image is a living being, and it is no longer 

" Superstition, that 
We kneel, and then implore her blessing." 1 

Turn a person into a thing, as when a popish image 
is broken up, and its movement proved to be me- 
chanical, and the adoration is gone. Now, wherein 
does this difference consist? I answer, then, that 
whatever derives its powers of motion from without, 
from some other being, is a thing. Whatever pos- 
sesses a spontaneous action within itself, is a person, 
or, as Aristotle defines it, an ap£»f ^p^fs^. 2 And 
man is so formed, that his thoughts and affections 
cannot rest on any thing short of the seeming cause 
and original source of effects which he admires. 
Neither will any thing else excite his anger, or 
hatred, or opposition, against that which is evil. A 
carrier is the means of conveying to me a valuable 
present. I have no gratitude to him. He is but an 
instrument ; an unthinking means — a thing. All 
my thoughts are concentrated on the donor. He also 

1 Winter's Tale, act v. sc. 3. 

2 Nicho. Eth. lib. iii. 



CH. XII.] NATURE OF PERSONALITY. 153 

was stimulated by some other person. He sent the 
gift against his own will. My thoughts pass on 
from him to his adviser. It comes to me through 
a special messenger connected with the donor, and 
I am grateful to the messenger as representing the 
donor himself, or as exhibiting sympathy with his 
feelings, or as a voluntary agent. An executioner 
is appointed to put a criminal to death. The un- 
happy offender feels no resentment against him, nor 
against the judge, nor against the king, nor against 
the witnesses, who were compelled to depose against 
him. They were constrained by other powers — did 
not act spontaneously — are, in his eyes, but things. 
On one person only his indignation is directed, who, 
without any compulsion, betrayed him spontane- 
ously. And it is to be observed, that, on the one 
hand, strong feeling, of whatever kind, transmutes 
things into persons — regards them, that is, as origin- 
ating, instead of mechanical agents. Poetry and 
passion are full of personifications : the trees, the 
winds, the rocks, the waters, all seem to sympathise 
with deep grief or violent joy. Love will endow 
almost with thought and feeling the merest relic 
of a favourite object. It puts life, and action, 
and spontaneity into every thing. It is grateful to 
secondary causes — reverences subordinate instru- 
ments — creates associations with dead material 
works, as with animated beings. Once rouse the 
human mind, and it fills and impregnates a whole 
universe of matter with a spirit like its own, — 

Totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. 1 

Whereas the opposite working of a cold rationalising 
scepticism sucks out, even from things that have 

1 Virgil. Mn. 



154 PERSONALITY OF THE EVIL POWER 

life, their very breath and soul. The universe be- 
comes chance atoms. Animals are brute machines ; 
man's body is a study of anatomy ; man's intellect 
a mill for grinding logic : man's heart passive 
before impulse, as a leaf before the wind ; man's 
soul an empty mirror, lying helpless, to be defiled 
by every impression of the senses. 

It may be the sign of a fanciful excited spirit to 
personify every thing ; but it is a sign of a far 
worse spirit to personify nothing. Whenever you 
find a tendency to deny spontaneity, unless with 
proper qualifications, distrust the theory : 

" Hie niger est ; hunc tu, Romane, caveto." 

Superstition, once more, may be bad, but unbelief 
and materialism are infinitely worse. 

And thus reject at once the miserable rationalism 
of the day, which, as it converts the agency of God 
into nature, or necessity, or chance, or mechanism, 
so also it turns the power of evil into a defect in the 
machinery of the world, or a contrivance in the dis- 
cipline of God, or a quality in the essence of matter, 
or a necessary ingredient in a system made up of 
subordinate parts, or a disease in man's own mind, 
or a brute necessity against which it is vain to 
struggle. These are the theories which you will 
meet in modern speculations on the origin of evil. 
But the Power of Evilis a Person. It is seen acting 
in opposition to God, who is the Maker and the 
Lord of the world. It corrupts what he made per- 
fect, thwarts what he designs, pollutes what he made 
pure, resists what he commands, lays plots for his 
creatures, " sows tares among his harvest," " de- 
vours his flock," mars the fair work of his creation ; 
and all this in the face and in defiance of laws, and 
authority, and counteracting influences, established 
by the Author of good. Recollect this. Recollect 



(II. XII. J ATTESTED BY GOD. 155 

that there is a Power of good in the world, in the 
hand which has contrived so many encouragements 
to virtue, so many remonstrances of conscience, so 
many witnesses against vice, so much beauty, so much 
wisdom, in the mechanism of the universe ; and that 
this good Power recognizes the evil Power, not as a 
servant ministering to it s own purpose, but as an in- 
dependent agent arrayed and contending against it as 
an enemy — that God plans remedies against its mis- 
chiefs, raises warnings against its aggressions, binds 
men by most solemn obligations to fight against it, 
anticipates, counterworks, rebukes, chastises, deals 
with it in all points as with a foe. And then ask if 
it be safe for us to take another view of its nature, a 
view the very reverse of that which is taken by God. 
If two bodies of soldiers were drawn up against 
each other, how would you know that the battle 
was real ; that two persons^ two independent agents, 
were contending, and not one only employing the 
other, as a machine, for its own will and purpose ? 
— when there was real bloodshed, real fear, real 
thoughtful deliberation on each side. And is there 
real bloodshed in the world ? Did our Saviour shed 
tears over his creation? Did he die himself, that 
he might triumph over evil ? Does he warn us 
to die also, lest we should be dragged down into 
torment ? Or, let us use another and more fami- 
liar illustration. Place two chess-players before us 
— let one, in reality, play the whole game, using 
the other only as a seeming antagonist, overruling 
his movements, allowing him no independent spon- 
taneous action ; and this seeming antagonist will lose 
his personality at once. He will sink down into an 
automaton — a thing. And how would you ascertain 
this ? By seeing the victory always follow on one 
side — by finding that the superior exhibited no 
signs of fear, took no pains to frame his own move- 



156 ATTESTED BY GOD. 

ments, or framed them always in one regular un de- 
viating plan, as if with the knowledge that they 
could be met by only one course of opposition — 
that he made no remonstrances — that he never failed 
in his designs — that he treated his antagonist as a 
child. If we saw this, we should say that the battle 
was a delusion — the enemy a sham. But do we 
find this in the world ? Does God, the Author of 
good, so deal with the author of evil ? Is there no 
failure in his designs of good ? Are there no symp- 
toms of precaution ? Does He warn us against evil ? 
Are the organised plans of good deeply laid, artfully 
concerted, as against a most powerful adversary ? 
What is the Catholic Church? What is' the whole 
array of Christian influences, of Christian teaching, 
of Christian facts ? Even in the world of matter, 
look to that infinite array of concerted means, of 
contrivances, of precautions against evil, of reme- 
dies when evil has been done ; in array so full of 
the thought of resistance to some counteracting 
power, that Bishop Butler almost describes it as a 
scheme of mercy and compassion, rather than of 
benevolence, — and then think if there is not a real 
living Agent in the world, with power, and will, and 
thought, and reason, — a Person, who is the author 
of evil. 

And to those whose ears have been filled with 
the soft, easy, indulgent doctrines of the present day, 
which would put out of sight all the misery, and sin, 
and present pain, and future torment of the world, 
— -just as in our cities it throws back the hovels of 
the poor, and the dens of vice, into dark holes and 
alleys, that the eye may see nothing but palaces, — 
this will sound like Manicheism. It will be called 
an Eastern fancy, the dream of a melancholy and 
heated fanaticism. But Manicheism itself were al- 
most better — it were a less insult to Almighty God, 



CIT. XII.] DIFFICULTY MERELY SPECULATIVE. 157 

less enervating in its influence upon man, less a 
tampering with the express voice of revelation, less 
fatal in its final ruin, than the delusion of our modern 
civilization, which denies " a devil and a hell." " I 
say unto you,"' says Chrysostom, "talk of hell, and 
think of hell/' and therefore of him who is its mas- 
ter. Believe in the personality of an evil spirit ; and 
the whole world, and the whole of life, will take a dif- 
ferent colour; fearful indeed, anxious, full of sorrow 
for the past, of earnest watching for the future ; but 
there will be energy, and forethought, and serious- 
ness, and self-denial, and these will make the man. 
And there will be hope and comfort also. 

How the existence of such a personality is to be 
reconciled with the omnipotence of an all-good Cre- 
ator, we are not called on to explain. Little is told 
us by revelation. If a man woke up in the night, 
and found himself in conflict with a murderer, it 
would be no time to speculate on the mode by which 
he obtained entrance into the house. If a child were 
placed by his parent in the water, in order to teach 
him to swim, the parent would say little of his own 
object, but much on the danger of drowning, and 
on the means of escape. And the child would not 
resolve on sinking to the bottom without a struggle, 
because he could not reconcile his danger with the 
usual benevolence of the being who exposed him to 
it. One thing indeed is told us with sufficient clear- 
ness to obviate all practical difficulty, — the supre- 
macy of God ; not only his ultimate supremacy, in 
that " new heaven and new earth," which shall be 
created when the " first heaven and the first earth 
shall have passed away" (Rev. xxi. 1), — but his 
present supremacy, even in this antecedent state of 
conflict, overruling " all things for good to them 
that love God, to them who are the called accord- 
ing to his purpose" (Rom. viii. 28) ; that is, to all 
p 



158 CATHOLIC DOCTRINE. 

sincere and baptized members of bis Cburch. And 
with tbis it will be wise to rest content. Of the 
facts themselves we are sure. Of the duties fol- 
lowing on these facts there can be no doubt. How 
they are to be reconciled together, may be a matter 
of curiosity ; but the curiosity can only end in idle 
speculation, or something worse. Here again, as in 
so many other instances, the true wisdom lies in hold- 
ing two contrary principles, as practical counter- 
balances of each other, without attempting to give 
them unity, and absorb one in the other ; except 
indeed by that simple process of faith, which enables 
us to believe equally in both facts on the one word of 
one revelation from God. Let others endeavour to 
reduce into one the two agencies at present working 
in the world — both into good, or both into evil. 
On the faith of the Catholic Church declaring the 
truth from God, we will hold them both. Especially 
we will hold, and realise, and act upon the true, 
unfigurative, literal personality of a Spirit of evil ; 
tempting man, lying in wait for him, triumphing 
over him, hating him, "going about daily, seeking 
whom he may devour." On this main fact must 
rest the foundation of all Christian Ethics. With 
this the ancient Church began its Christian edu- 
cation. Her first thought was, to stand before the 
Evil one as his appointed antagonist, to recognise 
his power over man, and her own power, as God's 
delegate, over Satan and his angels ; and to adjure 
him, as Christ did of old, to come out of the victim 
whom he possessed. 

For in the ceremony of exorcism, this fact of 
" possession'' was implied also. The Catholic Church 
never contemplated man in his natural state — as bad 
ethical systems contemplate him — as if he were a 
free, independent agent, capable of battling with 
the evil one, and overcoming him ; or even as in no 



CH. XII.] POSSESSION. 159 

way exposed to his attack. She speaks of him in 
his original condition as a prisoner, as a slave — as 
poor, to whom good tidings must be preached — as 
one broken-hearted, who is to be healed — as a cap- 
tive, who is to be delivered — as one blind, who 
must recover his sight — as one bruised, who is 
to be set at liberty (Luke iv. 18; Isaiah lxi. 1). 
This is the uniform, constantly recurring language 
of the Church. It has been the uniform language 
of all deep philosophy, of whatever school. All 
schools approaching to truth have recognised the 
fact, that man is formed of two principles — a 
mind, or thinking being within, which, in the 
language of Aristotle is the individual man, the 
exootos— the "I," the "You,'* the "He;" — and 
something zvithnut, which is no part of himself, but 
which confines, thwarts, binds him down, acts upon 
him, stands over him, just as the limits of the mould 
stands over the molten metal which is poured into 
it, and by resistance form it into shape. It is what 
the German philosophy understands by the " ego " 
and "non ego ;" and the French Eclecticism by the 
"moi"' and "non moi," — the something which we feel 
to be ourselves ; and that which we feel to be not our- 
selves, to be something out of and beyond us. And no 
thought whatever — no act — no, not even conscious- 
ness of our own existence, can take place without a 
perception of these two elements in it. And against 
this external influence, as against the bars of a prison, 
the mind is constantly struggling, longing to be- 
come its master, to rule instead of obeying it. Every 
cry for freedom, whether it rises from a miserable 
criminal groaning over his captivity to sin ; or an 
impatient child rebelling against the compulsion of 
its parent ; or a lawless sensualist striving to over- 
power the commandments of his conscience and the 
Church ; or a philosopher, like Plato, sighing over 



160 POSSESSION GENERALLY RECOGNISED. 

the tyranny of his senses, and striving to escape to 
some high region of thought, where he may command 
and master truth, instead of being tossed about by 
every impulse of the body; — whether it be the cla- 
mour of self-willed rationalism, disdaining the re- 
straints of authority ; or the cry of a rebellious nation 
rising in arms against its laws ; or the stern pride 
of Stoicism asserting its independence of outward 
things ; or the yearnings of the Eastern mystic to be 
released from this dungeon of existence, and absorbed 
in the essence of the Deity; or the ravings of fanatical 
enthusiasm, setting all forms and laws at defiance; 
or the contented succumbing of self-indulgence in 
a doctrine of chance or necessity, that it may be re- 
leased from the duty of a conflict ; or the degraded 
materialism of Locke, which made man the slave of 
his senses rather than acknowledge his subjection to 
the Church, — in all alike, there is the cry for free- 
dom ; and every cry for freedom is an acknowledg- 
ment of slavery ; and every thing which enslaves 
must, to him that is enslaved, seem evil. And thus 
the Catholic Church, in asserting the doctrine of 
"possession," only asserted a fact, on which the 
whole movement of thought and action in the world 
has proceeded from its creation. The whole has 
been a struggle for freedom — an effort to escape 
from some restraint, to subject outward circum- 
stances to the inner man, or the inner man to out- 
ward circumstances ; so that there may be no more 
battle, no more consciousness of servitude. 

And in this struggle who has succeeded ? Who 
in this life has ever attained to liberty, and with 
liberty to that which follows it — r^st, quiet, content- 
edness, power, supremacy over all things? Who 
among heathens professed that he had found it? 
Who even of Christians has done more than make 
some approach to it, not by his own might, but in the 



CH.XII.] evil possession. 161 

name of another ? The triumph of heathen philo- 
sophy was If*?: to "have," to " hold as inalienable 
property," to be "master of," our feelings, actions, 
principles, so that they should remain firm and un- 
shaken, and wholly in our own power, without de- 
pendence on the world without. It was to "possess," 
instead of being "possessed;" to be master, instead 
of slave. To be " possessed," and thus at the mercy 
of a power external to ourselves, was the great sin 
and great misery of heathenism. And so with the 
apostle : " For I know that in me (that is, in my 
flesh) dwelleth no good thing : for to will is present 
with me ; but how to perform that which is good 
I find not. For the good that I would, I do not ; but 
the evil which I would not, that I do. wt -etched 
man that I am ! ivho shall deliver me from the body 
of this death?" (Rom. vii. 18.) 

And in regarding as the action and as the domi- 
nion of the evil spirit all that which does thus seem 
to possess, master, hem us in — our senses, our flesh, 
the lusts of the eye, the pride of life, the fetters 
and chains of brute force, the innumerable influ- 
ences of desire, passion, ignorance, blindness, and 
sin, to which we feel ourselves subjected from 
our birth, — the Church only draws a distinction, 
on which bad moralists long since have founded 
a claim to exemption from responsibility. They 
say, and they say rightly, that the external in- 
fluences to which we are subjected, are of two 
kinds. One class allow of no choice. They act like 
tyrants, by compulsion, forcing us to do this, and ab- 
stain from that, whether we will or no. Such are the 
operation of the senses, which convey impressions to 
the mind, without allowing it to choose. It can do 
nothing but reject them. Such are the temptations 
of the flesh, which come to us before we are aware 
of them. Such are the powers of man. which make 
p 2 



162 EVIL POSSESSION. 

slaves of our body. Such are the demoniacal pos- 
sessions recorded in Scripture, in which the will 
had no part. But the other class of external influ- 
ences never act with this overbearing compulsion. 
They stand aloof, like Wisdom crying in the streets 
(Prov. i. 20), — warning, admonishing, encouraging, 
inviting men " to come to them," and obey them, 
but never forcing compliance. This is the charac- 
teristic distinction between external influences of 
evil, and those of good. Whenever we obey the 
good, we " obey from the heart," as well as with 
the body. We give ourselves up to them, and feel 
that we do so of ourselves, with gladness, without 
reproach or remonstance from within, with an 
exercise of power, and a consciousness of freedom. 
Hence goodness, which is obedience to God, is 
essentially a service of freedom, an act of power, 
an enjoyment of the heart, even when it is preceded 
by a struggle against evil. And vice, which is ser- 
vitude to evil, is always servitude — always reluctant, 
remorseful, wavering, impatient, fretful, and discon- 
tented. No man feels that he is "possessed" by 
good, as a slave is possessed by a master. No one 
" possesses" evil, or feels that he is its master, even 
when he follows it most greedily. He feels that he 
is possessed by it. 

And thus, that man at his birth is possessed by a 
power above him ; that this power is evil ; that it 
must be exorcised and driven out, and man made 
free from its dominion, — is the uniform declaration 
both of the Gospel and of philosophy. But the Gospel 
adds something more. It asserts that in this power 
of evil, within whose grasp we are born, there is a 
person, as well as a thing. It constitutes the Church 
the minister of God, to release men from his chains. 
And this power was asserted by the ancient Church, 
when, before the infant was baptized, it was solemnly 



CH. XII.] POSSESSION. 163 

subjected to exorcism. It is recognised by our own 
branch of the Catholic Church, when it speaks of 
children unbaptised as " children of wrath" — when 
it calls on them to "renounce the devil," as a per- 
son to whom they were by birth enthralled — when 
it receives them into the " ark of Christ's Church," 
as into a state of salvation, and prays that the " old 
Adam may be buried, and all carnal affections die 
in them," as if till then these were alive, and hold- 
ing them in subjection and slavery. 



164 INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL WORLD. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

When man, then, is born into the world, he finds 
himself in contact with a power which is no part of 
himself — placed as it were in a prison — fettered as it 
were with chains — faced by an antagonist with whom 
he has to fight a battle — subjected to an imperious 
master. He cannot become conscious of his own 
existence, without becoming conscious of the exist- 
ence of this power also. It is this fact — I repeat it 
once more — which is intended by the words so com- 
mon in modern philosophy, both of Germany and 
France, the "ego" and "non ego." It is recognised 
by the Church as well. And however abstruse the 
problem may sound when thus stated abstractedly, 
practically we must each be familiar with it, other- 
wise it cannot be true. For the highest axioms of 
Ethics are only generalised expressions of pheno- 
mena common to all human minds. The peasant 
acts in every act upon the sense of an " ego" and a 
"non ego" — of something which is himself, and 
something which is not himself; each of them within 
the range of his consciousness, — just as much as the 
profoundest metaphysician. 

Let us realise the fact fully ; for in Christian, as 
in all Ethics, every thing depends on it. I see, then ; 
but in the act of seeing, I must see some object, and 
that object must be conceived as distinct from the 
mind which sees it. I hear ; but I must hear a sound, 
which sound is no part of the mind, for it vanishes, 
and the mind remains. I touch : but there is some- 
thing which is touched, something which resists my 



CH. XIII.] INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL WORLD. 16<3 

hand — solid — which I cannot pass — which is no part 
of myself, otherwise it could not resist, it would be in 
my power. I move ; but without a fulcrum or basis 
which is fixed and immovable by me, motion is as im- 
possible as for a man to walk on the yielding water. 
I feel desire : but it must be for an object, as for 
something out of me, or I should possess it already. 
I hope, fear, love, hate, admire, despise, teach, obey, 
sympathise, censure ; but in each case there must be 
an object external to me, for every feeling within 
necessarily implies some exciting cause without. 
I think, contemplate, examine, analyse, prove, re- 
fute, assent to, disbelieve ; but in each, and in every 
other act of the understanding, there must be not 
only a mind reasoning, but something distinct from 
it, on which it reasons. And thus in the three 
divisions of human nature, sensation, appetite, and 
intellect, — or, to use the Greek words as given by 
Aristotle, aio-Qvo-ig, °V!k, and vovc, — no act can 
take place without implying two things to make up 
the idea — something within the individual, and 
something without. Here also is exemplified the 
fact before asserted, that all things in the present 
world are made up of at least two elements ; or, 
to use a more formal statement, that dualism is the 
law of creation. 

Now what I wish to shew is, that in all cases 
this external element, this something which is not 
ourselves, acts to the internal element, or to that 
which we call ourselves, as a law, a resisting power, 
which is superior to it, is fixed, unalterable, to 
which we must conform ; that, in fact, the very 
perfection of our senses, of our feelings, and of our 
reason, consists in this conformity or subjection. 
And if this be so, then we shall reach another con- 
clusion, that in no circumstances whatever can man 
be released from it — in no circumstances whatever 



166 THE CHEIST1AN NOT FKEE, 

can he be without such a law, free from such re- 
straint — that liberty, if by liberty he meant the ab- 
sence of external control, is not only no good, but, 
looking to the nature of man, is an impossibility. 
And then we shall be prepared to hear the great 
truth of Christianity. It calls us slaves by birth ; 
but it does not profess to set us free, but only to 
make us servants to another master. It says nothing 
of freedom, rights, independence, power ; its whole 
language is obedience, duty, dependence, weakness. 
And the ancient Church had its form in which this 
great truth was enunciated, in the rite of baptism. 

When, then, the person whose education the 
Church was undertaking was brought to be bap- 
tized, he was first, either in his own person, or in 
his sponsors, placed towards the west, barefooted 
and stripped of his outer garments — his hands 
stretched out, as if pushing an enemy from him — 
his head averted — and thrice he was bidden to spit 
in the face of Satan, as a form of abhorrence and 
rejection, and thrice to renounce him and all his 
works. And then he was turned to the east — his 
eyes lifted up to heaven — his hands stretched out 
in prayer — and he was called on to make a solemn 
profession of entering into the service of another 
master, Christ. 'ATroracro-^ tw zuruvcf ; Abrenun- 
tiasne Satance ? ^vwkcro-y) toT Xpto-ToT; Adhceresne 
Christo P 

1 See the account given m Bingham, Ecclesiast. Antiquit. 
book xi. c. 8, with the references to Tertullian, the Aposto- 
lical Constitutions, Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, Cyril, Gregory 
Nazianzen, Dionysiusthe Areopagite, Basil, Augustin, &c. &c ; 
who all agree in the account of the ceremony. See also the 
form in the Greek Euchologium, which is perhaps one of the 
most striking portions of the liturgy of the Eastern Church. 
Observe also that the word T ao-o-o is used with an especial 
reference to a soldier placing himself under the orders of a 
general ; and that the highest perfection, especially of an an- 
cient soldier, was implicit, unhesitating, almost unreasoning 



CH. XIII.] BUT THE SLAVE OF CHRIST. 167 

I will not stop to ask, if such a form as this, 
strange as it may sound to us, is reconcilable with 
a disbelief in the personality of a spirit of evil. 
"You entered into the baptistery," says Cyril 1 — 
" you stood turned to the west, and heard the order 
to stretch forth your hand, and you renounced Satan 
(aTrsTaTTEo-Oe) as present at the spot, — \q irocyovri" 
"We turn to the west," says Jerome, 2 "renouncing 
him whose dwelling is in the west, — qui in occidente 
est." They gave to him not only a personal agency, 
but a local habitation, as in a place of darkness. 

But consider if this principle of subjection to a 
master, though another and a better master than 
him under whose dominion we are born, does not 
run through Christianity. The apostles do not 
boast of their freedom, do not even call themselves 
servants ; they call themselves the slaves ()ov\oi) of 
Christ. 3 Christ does not bid the heavy-laden shake 
off a yoke, but take one upon them. Our Church 
does not speak of freedom as the great blessing of 
God, but of a service which is perfect freedom. 
The very words "redemption," "purchased," imply 
that we are become the property of Him who pur- 
chased us. Again, Christ does not admit the alter- 
native as possible, that we should serve no master 
— he says only, that we can serve but one. And 

obedience. Observe further, that the triple renunciation was 
probably a symbol retained from the old form used in the 
emancipation of a slave (Vicecomes. de Rit. Bapt., lib. ii. c. xx 
p. 311). And then observe how our own liturgy, though it 
does not employ the form of the actions, preserves precisely the 
same truths in its form of words; where the child is made to 
promise not only "to renounce the devil," but also to " obe- 
diently keep God's commandments, and to walk in the same 
all the days of his life" (Baptismal Service). 

1 Catech. Mystag. i. n. 11, p. 278. 

2 In Amos vi. 14. 

3 See Rom. i. 1 ; Philip i. 1 ; Tit. i. 1 ; James i. 1 ; 2 Pet. 
i. 1 ; Jude 1. 



168 EXTERNAL WORLD A LAW. 

St. Paul's words are too precise to be passed over. 
" Neither yield ye your members as instruments of 
unrighteousness 1 unto sin, but yield yourselves unto 
God, as those that are alive from the dead, and 
your members as instruments (oVxa) of righteous- 
ness unto God. . . .Being then made free from sin, 
ye became the servants of righteousness " (Rom. vi. 
13). 2 Liberty, therefore, and freedom, are no watch- 
words of Christianity ; and any system in which they 
are watchwords you may be sure is false. 

I said, then, that every act of the human mind 
implied the recognition of an external world distinct 
from it. I now say, that this external world stands 
to it as a law, as a power which it must obey, which 
it never fails to obey without running into folly or 
vice. 

Take, in the first place, the senses. I am walk- 
ing in a fog. There is a tree before me, its outline 
indistinct. I imagine it to be a house ; that is, I 
frame in my mind an image or idea which does not 
coincide with the real object before me. I am in 
error. I lose my way at night. A light plays be- 
fore me. I imagine it to be a lantern ; that is, in- 
stead of framing a conception of it as it really exists, 
I put together certain other notions, act upon them, 
and am led into a quagmire. I am standing on the 
edge of a precipice. I imagine that it is ten feet 
off; that is, I conceive the distance between me and 
it to be so much : I have made a mistake, step for- 
ward, and break my neck. A chemist takes some 
white crystals out of a glass bottle. He frames a 
conception of their nature, as if they were a very 
useful medicine, Epsom salts. He has made a mis- 

1 The original is oirXa,— make yourselves the heavy-armed 
soldiers, the body-guard, as it were, of sin, sworn to follow 
your commander without will of your own. 

2 The whole passage should be consulted. 



CH. XIII.] GOODNESS IS CONFORMITY TO IT. 169 

take ; that is, lie has not conformed the idea in his 
mind to the external nature of the substance, as 
it exists quite independent of his fancies ; and the 
person to whom he administers it is poisoned with 
oxalic acid. A deaf person half-hears certain words. 
Instead of conforming his notion of them exactly to 
the real sounds as they were uttered, he makes a 
wrong guess, repeats it, and thus propagates a lie. 
A poet, to be a poet, must imitate. Can he make 
the character, the scenery, the incidents which he 
narrates, exactly conformable to some standard, 
either the standard of real life, or a standard of a 
more exalted kind, such as God suggests to us in 
the nobler works of his creation ? If he cannot, his 
imitation is worthless. 1 A young man sees a beau- 
tiful woman. Instead of examining her character, 
ascertaining what she really is, he suffers his imagi- 
nation to run wild, fancies her an angel, acts upon 
his fancy, marries her, and is made wretched for 
life. A general miscalculates the enemy's force, 
the number of his own troops, the position which 
they occupy. He does not bring his notions into 
conformity with the external reality, and he is de- 
feated. A statesman makes a law. He supposes 
that it will act in such a way, that it contains such 
and such elements of good, that it is conformable 
to the laws of policy or the law of God : it turns out 
that he has failed to make it so conformable, and 
the law proves a national curse. The miser fancies 
that money is an object which can make him happy; 
the ambitious man, that honour and power are bless- 
ings ; the sensualist, that he can satisfy his thirst by 
indulgence in pleasures. Each is disappointed — 
each led into sin. Why? Because their concep- 

1 Those who can study Greek literature will see this ques- 
tion discussed in two dialogues of Plato, the Theaetelus and 
the Philetus, and in the last book of the Republic. 
Q 



170 CONFORMITY TO EXTERNAL LAW. 

tions do not accord with the reality. The workings 
of the inner man have not been forced into coin- 
cidence with the stern unalterable standard of the 
external world. 

Will these hints suffice to lead you on (it is all 
that I propose) to trace in innumerable other in- 
stances, that our excellence uniformly consists in re- 
ducing our ideas, our feelings, and our actions, into 
agreement with a standard without — that wherever 
there is a want of such agreement, there is evil — 
and that the standard remains fixed ; — we ourselves 
are to be changed. Nothing, we know, is good, 
unless it be true and right. But right means ruled ; 
a line made to coincide with another line — not 
crooked — not diverging from it. And true also 
means that which accords with some rule or mea- 
sure ; false is that which is at variance with it. A 
true note in music is that which accords with the 
note fixed by the composer. A false step is one 
which does not adapt itself to the measure of the 
ground which we tread, or to the rhythm to which 
we are walking. A true copy is that which faithfully 
represents the original. A false statement is one 
which differs from the reality of fact. Look to the 
perfection of a Christian. God has given him ex- 
ternal laws for his belief, in the creeds. When his 
faith agrees with them, then it is good. God has 
also given him external laws for his feelings- — taught 
him how to frame his wishes, by putting into his 
mouth the Lord's Prayer. When his heart can 
really feel what his lips have uttered, his heart is 
in a sound state. And the same God has also given 
external laws for his actions in the Ten Command- 
ments. And it is not till we violate them that our 
acts are bad — are wrong ; not till we obey them as 
God's laws, that our acts are right. 

This was what Plato meant by saying, that the 



CH. XIII.] LAW MUST BE FIXED. 171 

perfection of man consisted in conforming himself 
to certain forms, or $Im, laid down for him by his 
Creator. It was what the Stoics meant, when they 
said that man, to be free, must adapt himself to the 
laws of nature; must make his thoughts, and feelings, 
and actions, coincide with the rules of Providence. 
It is what Bacon meant, when he complained that 
men formed notions and theories without looking 
to things as they are. It is what all philosophers 
mean, when they say that truth should be our ob- 
ject — that we should understand the real nature of 
things — form right views — not be fanciful, enthu- 
siastic, mystical, ignorant, mistaken, — all of which 
imply the having in our mind notions of outward 
things which do not fairly and accurately exhibit 
the real nature of those things. 

Observe, moreover, that for one thing to be the 
measure or standard of another, it must be fixed, 
permanent. Can you measure the distance you 
have sailed at sea by a sea- weed floating with the 
tide ? Can you tell if a line is straight, when the 
ruler bends as it is applied ? Can you discern if an 
object in a mist is square or round, when the fog is 
rolling past, and its outline is perpetually shifting ? 
Will you say if a sum is right, or corresponds with 
a certain amount, when the items are altered as you 
calculate ? Can you act in any way as a reasonable 
being, without having some end in view? And if 
that end is variable, can you frame your means so 
as to attain it ? You steer a vessel — how ? By 
looking not to any part of the vessel which is in 
motion, but to the fixed stars which are above it. 
You try to please a friend ; you concert measures 
for it ; his taste changes ; they are all futile. You 
plan schemes of happiness. I tell you that you will 
die before they are completed. The end is gone, 
and with it your schemes. Can you walk, if the 



172 LAW MUST BE FIXED. 

ground is not firm — see, if the object is not fixed — 
hear, if the sound comes only in fits and starts, 
not uniformly and permanently ? Will you believe 
a tale in which no two reporters agree ? "Will 
you value a capricious, mutable, fickle mind? Can 
you obey a law, which is altered while you are 
obeying it? Can you frame yqur conduct to suit 
any relations in life — those of parent, or child, or 
master, or servant, or subject, or king — unless those 
relations are fixed? Fixedness, therefore, and perma- 
nence, is essential in that which is to serve as a rule 
for your actions, a measure for your affections, a 
standard for your belief. If there be nothing in 
the world fixed and permanent, as a bad sophistical 
school of morals would persuade you — if our senses 
constantly deceive us— if the laws of nature are 
always shifting — if right and wrong, vice and virtue, 
are mere fancies and delusions, varying with the 
tastes and feelings of every individual at every mo- 
ment, — then you cannot act at all. You have no 
business in the world. Add this to the other symp- 
toms of a false philosophy. When a man talks to 
you of mutable principles of virtue, of goodness de- 
pending on taste, of laws varying with circumstances, 
of new principles successively generated, of a change 
in the present times which has superseded former 
rules, of new truths in theology, of progressive de- 
velopments of Christianity, by which what is past 
shall be repeatedly obliterated to make room for 
that which is to come, — in each of these speculations 
you may discern the mark of "mutability;'' and 
mutability was never impressed on any theory on 
the right side of that line which separates the good 
from the bad. On the contrary, wherever you 
see a mind struggling for permanence, consistency, 
durability, laying a stress on fixed habits, valuing 
fixed rules, maintaining unaltered hereditary insti- 



CH. XIII.] FIXEDNESS NOT WITHIN US. 173 

tutions, rebuking caprice, despising mere opinions, 
laying deep the foundations of belief in unalter- 
able eternal principles, recognising something which 
never changes in ':he midst of all the vicissitudes of 
human circumstances, and the fancies of the human 
heart, — there you may discern one element at least 
of truth, one symptom of a great and noble mind. 
The system is probably good. 

But observe one thing more. Thought, feeling, 
sensation in man, we found necessarily implied the 
perception of two elements, the internal and exter- 
nal, the "ego"' and "non ego. 1 ' And our perfec- 
fection consists in conforming them to each other ; and 
for this purpose one must be a standard, and to be 
a standard it must be fixed. But this fixedness can- 
not be found in the element of ourselves. It is only 
the outer world which is thus regular, durable, in- 
variable. The laws of the world without do not 
change. It surrounds us with walls which we can- 
not pierce through. It fetters us with chains which 
we cannot break. It fills our senses with realities, 
which remain when our senses are averted, are re- 
moved by distance, are paralysed, are destroyed. 
There is the oak under which so many generations 
have rested. There is the tomb in which family after 
family have been laid down to rest. There stands the 
home, with all its scenes, the same whether we are 
absent or present. There shines the sun above us, 
whether we smile or weep, live or die, still looking 
gladly on the world, still coming forth from its 
chamber, still rejoicing to run its race, whether we 
behold it or not. The seasons come and go, whe- 
ther we listen or not to their voice of warning. The 
secret agencies of nature do their bidding, whether 
or no we understand them. God's prophets speak, 
and speak realities, and their words will come to 
pass, whether we will hear, or whether we will for- 
Q2 



174 FIXEDNESS NOT WITHIN US. 

bear. God's moral laws are fixed and changeless, 
though to-day we listen to them with awe, and to- 
morrow turn away in contempt. God's truths are 
sure and eternal, though never uttered in the world, 
when uttered heard only by a few, by many of those 
few misunderstood, by none comprehended as they 
should be. And God's promises, and threatenings, 
and punishments, all stand firm, though we are blind, 
or careless, or rebellious. Even the material world, 
fixed as it is to us, is transitory and perishable com- 
pared with the only truth, the being and the attri- 
butes of God. " Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast 
laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens 
are the work of thine hands : they shall perish ; but 
thou remainest ; and they all shall wax old as doth 
a garment ; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them 
up, and they shall be changed; but thou art the 
same, and thy years shall not fail." (Heb. i. 10; 
Psalm cii. 25). But man's mind is even more mu- 
table than the earth, which shall pass away. It 
is a mirror, which every passing object clouds and 
colours with its own hues. It is in restless, heaving 
motion; thought after thought, image after image 
flit across it, and none remain. It wearies, and 
sleeps, and wakes again, and labours and wearies 
once more ; and with every variation, its taste and 
appetites, and sentiments, and opinions, and belief 
vary also. No man is in the evening what he was 
in the morning. No man can answer against some 
blot in the purity of his heart, some flaw to be 
discovered in his reasoning, some addition to his 
knowledge, some new discernment of relations, some 
fresh item in his calculation, which may alter the 
whole balance, and make him at one hour a very 
different man from what he was in the hour before. 
He will, indeed, search for fixedness in himself. 
He will lay down laws for his moral conduct ; erect 



CII. XIII.] INTERNAL MISTAKEN FOll EXTERNAL. 175 

his own opinions into a standard of truth ; act upon 
his own sensations, uncorrected and unexamined as 
they are, with as much confidence in their accuracy 
as if they were realities. The madman sits in his 
cell, calling his chains a royal robe, his bed of straw 
a throne, his prison a palace ; and shaping all his 
words, and feelings, and actions, into rigid con- 
formity with this belief, as if it were a fact. A 
hypochondriac believes himself dead. He gives 
orders for his funeral ; complains that he is not 
buried ; insists that his family should put on mourn- 
ing, with as much positiveness as if he were not 
alive. An aeronaut makes a calculation of the 
weight of his body, the law of gravitation, the 
strength of his balloon. On the faith of this he 
mounts up into the air. But, because his belief 
has rested, not on realities, but opinions, he falls 
headlong to the ground. A philosopher frames a 
theory, which is to make men good by properly 
shaping the organs of the scull. No such process 
will make them good. But he holds fast his theory ; 
acts upon it just as vigorously as a Christian would 
act on his belief, that the Church alone, with its 
sacraments and ordinances, could save mankind. In 
all these cases, the fault is, not that man acts with- 
out reference to an external reality, but that he 
believes his own fancies and opinions, untried as 
they are, to be external realities. He mistakes, to 
use the terms so common in Greek philosophy, and 
especially in Plato, &?|^ and Qavrao-icu for to- ovtk, 
that is, for real positive truths, as they exist wholly 
independent of his conceptions of them. 

But the point now to be observed is this. Al- 
though for a time men can and will thus rest with 
certainty on this unsound ground, and mere human 
fancies will appear solid realities for a moment, the 
solidity cannot last; the belief will be overthrown 



176 INTERNAL FLUCTUATES. 

as soon as we begin to act upon them. Like the 
fragile glass and the hard stone bottles swimming 
down the stream together, at the first collision the 
glass will break. You think the ice strong enough 
to bear you ; venture on it, and you fall in. You 
think sin will make you happy ; taste it, and you 
will think so no more. And thus actions, and 
theories, and plans of life, built upon any other 
foundation than real external truth, sooner or later 
must crumble to pieces. Landmarks fixed only by 
human reason must disappear. There is nothing 
stable in the individual man alone, in the " ego," as 
there is in the "non ego." Trace it in private life. 
See the miser fixing for himself some limit to the 
accumulation of his wealth ; when he reaches it, is 
he contented ? See an author working at a book 
which is to complete his labours ; when it is finished, 
he begins another. See a nation escaped from the 
restraint of positive law, and trusted to its own imagi- 
nation ; it lays down other laws of its own, but will 
they remain unchanged ? How many French con- 
stitutions followed one another, like dreams, the 
moment the door was opened to the fancies of poli- 
tical speculators ! How many improvements in re- 
form started up to sweep away the final Reform- 
Bill, when once Englishmen had been taught to 
look for good to their own inventions, not to the 
institutions of their ancestors ! So also see a ra- 
tionalist taking as his standard of revealed truth, 
not the external positive testimony of the Catholic 
Church, but his own notion of its internal proba- 
bility ; receiving perhaps at first all the essential 
doctrines of Christianity as true, but on the ground 
of his own opinion : will his creed remain fixed ? 
or will he, as in the case of so many well-known 
men — Doddridge, Locke, Milton, and numberless 
others — gradually drop doctrine after doctrine, and 



CH.XIII.] THE CHUKCII OFFERS FIXED LAW. 177 

alter his faith till it becomes a nothing? What 
school of philosophy founded on human reason, 
what institution left unguarded by external autho- 
rity, ever maintained its ground against innovation? 
Fixedness, therefore, is not to be found by man in 
the world within himself. And yet without fixed- 
ness somewhere, some ground on which to rest, 
some point by which to measure and direct his 
course, some object on which his eye may dwell 
calmly and immovably, man cannot live. Where is 
he to obtain it ? In a world ivithout him. On this 
he must anchor his belief; here he must fix his 
resting-place ; in this he must find his laws ; in this 
he must make his immortality. 

And thus the Church comes before man, — weak, 
fickle, doubtful, capricious man, the slave of every 
impulse, " tossed about by every wind of doctrine," 
and yet yearning for some haven of rest, some stay in 
a stronger arm ; and promises to give him that rest 
and support, in the presence of an external power to 
which he must conform his actions, become its servant, 
submit to its will, adopt its decrees, believe by its be- 
lief, hope in its promises, live in its life, be immortal 
in its immortality. It does not cut the ship from 
its anchorages, and give it up to be tossed about by 
every wave and storm, but binds it by a stronger 
cable to a safer rock. It does not open the cage, 
and let the imprisoned bird go free ; for it knows 
that in this inclement clime, if left to itself, the bird 
must perish : but it provides a better abode, and 
purer water, and healthier nutriment, and a place 
in which, even though imprisoned, the bird will re- 
joice to dwell, and sing as sweetly, and take its flight 
as boldly, and plume its wings as gladly, as if it 
were ranging in a forest. It does not compassionate 
the tree, which cannot grow except rooted to the 
soil, and cut those roots and tear up the trunk, as 



178 THE CHURCH OFFERS FIXED LAW. 

if it could live in independence ; but it transplants 
it from a hungry ground, full of poisonous juices, 
and imbeds it in a genial loam, where its fibres will 
strike deeper, and its boughs spread kindlily and 
fully into the majesty of their perfect stature. It 
never promises to man liberty ; for man was not 
made for liberty, and can no more live in it than 
fishes in the air, or birds in the water : but it takes 
him from an evil servitude, and places him in ano- 
ther which is good. We renounced the de^il at our 
baptism ; we swore obedience unto Christ. 



CH. XIV.J CHRISTIAN LIFE A STRUGGLE. 179 



CHAPTER XIV. 

In this vow of obedience to Christ are involved 
many profound ethical truths. But I will first call 
your attention to a form which, not indeed in the 
primitive Church, but at an early period of Chris- 
tianity, about the fourth century, was introduced to 
follow it. Our ow r n baptismal service speaks of the 
regenerated infant as one " who is sworn manfully 
to fight under Christ's banner against sin, the world, 
and the devil, and to continue Christ's faithful sol- 
dier and servant unto his life's end." In the an- 
cient Church the same truth was symbolised under 
the form of an unction. " He was anointed with oil," 
says Chrysostom, " as the athletes, or wrestlers, when 
about to enter into the arena, — oLXufoTcu, co'c-tt^ ol 
a'Qxnrul slg <tt« Stov E^jS^cro^voi." l " You came to 
v the font, you were anointed," says Ambrose, 2 " as 
* an athlete of Christ, as one about to wrestle in the 
wrestling with this world. Venisti ad fontem .... 
unctus es, quasi athleta Christi, quasi luctam hujus 
sseculi luctaturus." 3 

The Church, therefore, regards the life of man as 
a struggle, and education as a means of aiding him 
in a battle, and enabling him to fight it manfully. 
It is the uniform language of Scripture. " To fight 
a good fight," "to put on the whole armour of 

1 Homil. vi. in Coloss. p. 1358. 

2 De Sacrament, lib. i. c. 11. 

3 See the passages referred to in Bingham's Eccles. Antiq. 
book xi. c. 9. 



180 CHRISTIAN LIFE A STRUGGLE. 

God," " to make our members the soldiers ( f WXa) of 
God," " Christ the Captain of our salvation," " to 
tight and run a race as combatants in the arena," 
" to endure hardness as a good soldier," — these and 
other like phrases meet us at every page. 

And what is life but a struggle ? And can it 
be otherwise, but by a miracle which shall alter the 
whole nature of man, and the constitution of the 
world ? And even were it otherwise, is there not 
something in our better reason — in our heart of 
hearts— which would disdain such an indolent ex- 
istence ? 

We have seen that the perfection of our nature 
lies in conforming our minds in their thoughts, 
feelings, and actions, to some fixed outward stand- 
ard. Is there any difficulty in so doing ? any thing 
which confuses our notions — gives us indistinct 
images of outward realities — tempts us to wander 
away from the positive commands under which we 
liv r e — suggests feelings which are not in accordance 
with the real nature of things ? Is the mind like a 
piece of wax, which is moulded passively and un- 
resistingly after the shape of some outward model ? 
or has its movements of its own, vague, ungovern- 
able, and rebellious, as a petulant child whom we 
would in vain fix in one posture — as a bough, which, 
when we bend it, springs back from the hand, — as a 
weight which refuses to follow the arm that would 
raise it — as a paralytic limb (it is Aristotle's descrip- 
tion) convulsively twitching in the direction oppo- 
site to the will of the body ? If this be so, all effort 
to be good must be a struggle and a battle. 

But let us look generally to facts. Are not " all 
things full of labour?" (Eccles. i. 8.) What is the 
history of states ? It is a narrative of wars, and 
battles, and conquests of one nation struggling to 
impose its yoke upon another, and of the other 



CH. XIV.] LIFE A STRUGGLE. 181 

struggling to shake it off — of governments strug- 
gling to control subjects, and subjects struggling 
to rebel — of faction striving against faction, power 
against power. What is the history of the Church, 
but a struggle against the world — a struggle to 
maintain truth, and preserve purity, and uphold 
right in the face of a deadly enemy ? What is the 
life of the individual, when you have taken from it 
his struggles against ignorance, and weakness, and 
self-deceit, and the deceit of others, poverty, disap- 
pointment, despair, sickness, calamities ? What is 
study, philosophy, reason, but an effort to escape 
from ignorance ; to force down into intelligible order 
a mass of strange and perplexing phenomena, to 
pierce through obstacles, and clear up obscurities ? 
What is art, but an effort, which the highest minds 
are the first to pronounce vain, to realise, and em- 
body, and perpetuate high conceptions, in defiance 
of the weakness of our own minds, the poverty and 
stubbornness of our materials, the dulness of those 
to whom we address ourselves ? What is even per- 
ception by the senses, but a labour ? We learn by 
degrees to see, to hear, to feel, as much as we learn 
a strange language. This has been clearly shewn. 
Couch the eyes of a blind man, and he can neither 
walk nor see, till by patience, and repeated trials, 
and many efforts, he has been able to form correct 
ideas of figures and distances. And then turn to the 
moral life of man. Where is the hero, the patriot, 
the temperate, the just, the patient, when they have 
nothing against which to struggle — no temptation, 
no difficulty? Even the life of guilt, is it not a 
struggle — a struggle to keep down remorse, to hide 
the past, to escape from the future, to smooth away 
the obstacles of law, to resist the voice of good, 
which meets man at every turn, as much as the 
voice of evil ? 



182 TWO KINDS OF STRUGGLE. 

But consider more narrowly, and see if yon can- 
not trace two different kinds of struggles. Here is 
a demagogue armed with a list of supposed griev- 
ances and imagined rights, who has framed to him- 
self some Utopian constitution, in which every man 
is to do as he likes ; and in order to realise this, he 
is struggling to suhvert the established institutions 
of his country. There is a monarch, as Charles I., 
righting to maintain for his successors and his people 
an hereditary throne, with its prerogatives, and a 
fixed system of government, which he did not frame, 
but succeed to, and which he is bound to save from 
popular usurpation. Here is the Church, striving 
even to death to hand down a creed, a ritual, and a 
priesthood, imposed on it by an external authority, 
over which it professes to have no power. It fights 
not only to preserve this from the encroachment of 
heresy, but to subdue all the world to receive it. In. 
another part is a rationalist, with an hypothesis of his 
own, which yet he firmly believes to be true, striv- 
ing with all his powers to undermine the Church, to 
pare away its creed, to alter its ritual, to prove its 
priesthood a mere mockery, so that nothing may 
stand in the way of his own imagination. Both 
are struggling, both zealous. If the Church has 
enthusiasm, atheism has also its fanaticism. They 
differ in this, that one contends for a fancy of its 
own, another for a treasure committed to it from 
without. Again, compare the three hundred Spar- 
tans dying at Thermopylae in obedience to the laws, 
and the thousands who fell in France fighting madly 
against the enemies of the revolution. Both strug- 
gled. Both fell like heroes. But the Spartans were 
acting under discipline ; the French under a wild 
impulse. Glory, liberty, France ; some object of 
trieir own, elevated, perhaps, and noble, but still 
their own, was the watchword with the French. 



CH.XIV.] TWO KINDS OF STRUGGLE. 183 

Obedience was the epitaph of the Spartans. Ex- 
tend the comparison to art. Compare Fuseli with 
Phidias ; a modern architect with the designers of 
our cathedrals ; Racine and Corneille, Byron and 
Pope, with Shakspeare and Homer. In both are 
efforts to produce perfection, to place before us 
high objects clothed in noble forms. But Phidias 
copied accurately the external standard of Nature, 
even to a vein upon the ribs, and the wrinkling of 
the flesh under the arms. 1 Fuseli struck out a wild 
phantasmagoria in his own brain, which he struggled 
indeed to embody in form and colour, but confessed 
himself incapable of reducing to the standard of real 
nature. Shakspeare copied man as he found him. 
Corneille and Byron imagined men, and then tried 
to picture a world suitable to be occupied by them. 
Modern builders, if asked for their plans, would 
find them" all within their own heads. The best 
ancient builders, whether Grecian or Gothic, were 
evidently bound down by fixed rules, submitted 
to hereditary teachers ; in some cases lived toge- 
ther, it might seem, in fraternities, which perpe- 
tuated a rigid code of art, from whose ultimate prin- 
ciples no variation was allowed, even in the freest 
play of fancy. So also philosophy. Compare all 
the schools, whether ancient or modern. All have 



1 1 am indebted for this observation to a distinguished painter, 
Mr. Haydon, who has traced the downfall of art in this country 
precisely to the same causes which have corrupted our morals ; 
and whose efforts to recall artists to the strict accurate study 
of the models of Nature, as external to mere fancy, it is hoped 
will receive more encouragement than has been hitherto ex- 
tended to them. Art and the higher branches of philosophy, 
and education itself, are intimately connected. And it is inter- 
esting to observe, that both in France, Germany, and England, 
a new school of art is arising, imbued with a far better spirit 
than any which has prevailed during the unhappy period of the 
last two centuries. 



184 TWO KINDS OF STRUGGLE. 

struggled to reach truth, to disseminate theories, to 
overcome doubt and error. But you will not find 
a noble, permanent, really divine philosophy, which 
does not bear upon its face the mark of an external 
origin, and of an external standard of truth, distinct 
from the mere opinion of its founder. And you will not 
find one, which professes to rest upon such an opinion, 
but it passes away like a shade, and sinks into mate- 
rialism and scepticism. It will struggle violently 
and convulsively — more violently perhaps than the 
other — but its struggles will end in nothing. Take, 
lastly, the region of sense ; look at the efforts of man 
to trace the laws of the material world. Before Ba- 
con there were physical philosophers, who gave ac- 
counts of the operations of Nature, and struggled to 
become its master. They, too, had their theories 
— their general principles — by which they explained 
its secrets, and professed to control its movements. 
Why is it we laugh at them ? Why do we ridicule 
their "animal spirits," their "plastic natures," their 
" sympathies," their " magic," under which names 
they struggled to reduce the realities of the material 
universe ? Because they were fictions of their own 
mind ; mere hypothesis. Why do we admire Ba- 
con ? Because he recalled men from fostering these 
dreams, and from struggling to interpret Nature 
by them as a true standard, and compelled them 
rather to shape their internal speculations to the 
external facts, not external facts to their internal 
speculations. 

Such is the distinction throughout ; and in mo- 
rals it is the same. Morals, I say, not as if the whole 
circle of human operation was not also moral, as 
exhibiting the workings of the one human mind, 
which it is the business of Ethics to educate ; but 
taking the common language of the day, and mean- 
ing by the word those actions which are more im- 



CH. XIV.] TWO KINDS OF STRUGGLE. 185 

mediately concerned with human passions and de- 
sires. When does the fear of God become super- 
stition instead of religion ? When man endeavours 
to propitiate Him, not by the means which He has 
appointed, but by self -invented forms. When did 
self-denial degenerate from true Christian mortifi- 
cation of the flesh to a vain asceticism? When 
it framed its own code of restrictions, instead of 
conforming to those which are appointed by the 
Church. When was Catholicism corrupted into 
Popery ? When Christians lost sight of the rigid 
lines of truth and discipline received from the Apos- 
tles, and invented creeds and a polity of their own. 
When did the tyranny and usurpation of Popery 
sink into the still more fatal tyranny, and still more 
unauthorised usurpation of Dissent? When men, in 
shaking off abuses, lost sight of the rules of anti- 
quity, and set up a new scheme on their own ima- 
gination. 

Again, when does benevolence become offici- 
ousness ? When man strives to do good, not in 
his place, according to the prescribed rules of his 
office or of society, but meddles with things and 
persons with which he has no authority to inter- 
fere. When would a soldier be punished for fighting 
like a hero against the enemy ? When he left the 
post where he was placed, and rushed into battle 
by an impulse of his own. When does liberality 
become vain-glory ? When man ceases to regard it 
as a duty imposed on him by God, and gives to gra- 
tify himself. When is relaxation idleness and false 
indulgence? When no command can be assigned 
for it ; and the only answer given is, "I like it — I 
choose it. r? When does study lead men into for- 
bidden speculations, engendering doubt, conceit, 
false bias, restlessness, and all the other evils of 
unhallowed curiosity ? When the mind studies 
k 2 



186 CORRUPTION OF HUMAN NATURE. 

without a guide, and under no command from a 
teacher. 

There are, then, two struggles placed before 
man in this life ; and he may choose between them. 
He may take an external rule, and to this endeavour 
to conform his internal feelings and actions. Or 
he may take these internal feelings, and to them 
endeavour to conform the world without him. There 
is no third course possible ; and I think even the 
little which has been said may point out on which 
side is wisdom and goodness. 

But how is it that these internal feelings are 
thus naturally at variance with the external stand- 
ard ? What is this rebellious, paralytic, disturbing 
agency within the mind, which we can only put 
down and bring to order by a struggle, and the 
struggle of a whole life ? 

Here, again, let us commence with the senses. 
When a person whose eyes have been couched first 
opens them, does the internal idea excited in him 
by the sight of a man, for instance, correspond with 
the external reality? Or does he " see men as trees 
walking ?" Does his notion of the size of the room, 
of the distance of the wall, at all coincide with the 
truth ? Or would he, if he followed the dictates of 
his fancy, stretch out his hand to touch a table which 
was twenty feet off ? Observe an infant feeling 
about in its cradle, its eye wandering, its ear turn- 
ing restlessly to catch sounds. It is endeavouring to 
adjust its impressions of external objects to the ob- 
jects themselves. Instead of its mind being, as the 
miserable sensuistic school of Locke supposed, the 
passive mirror and receptacle of outward objects, 
there is something at work within it, perverting, 
anticipating, and conjuring up ideas as different 
from the reality, as when a man in the dark mis- 
takes a bush for a robber, or a white sheet for a 



CH. XIV.] CORRUPTION OF HUMAN NATURE. 187 

ghost ; or as when a lake ruffled by the wind re- 
flects back the broken branches and wavering out- 
line of the motionless tree upon the banks ; or when 
a ploughboy runs after the rainbow, or a child 
believes that the moon is only a few feet in cir- 
cumference. The fact is, that the mind is active ; 
and its activity moves under laws which conjure up 
groups of ideas spontaneously, taking, as it were, the 
key-note from some real circumstance or quality in 
the outward object ; but then running on and string- 
ing to it a very different combination. It takes the 
right road, leading to the right house, but diverges 
from it into a wrong one. It catches the first 
word of a sentence, but instead of patiently reading 
the remainder, finishes with a sentence of its own. 
It hears the first notes of a piece of music, but runs 
off from it into another. And then when the two 
are compared, the imagination is at variance with 
the reality. It is false. 

Xow how has the mind acquired this power of 
spontaneously calling up strings of imaginary phan- 
tasies, when once it has been put in motion by a 
real external object ? It is by the action of two 
laws, familiar to all writers on the subject. One 
may be called the law of continuity ', the other the law 
of association. 1 By the law of continuity, the mind, 
when the chord has once been struck, continues, as 
Hume describes it, to repeat of itself the same note 
again and again, till it finally dies away. By asso- 
ciation, it falls naturally into the same train of con- 
secutive ideas, to which it has been before accus- 
tomed. Imagine a glass so constructed, that when 
the face placed before it was withdrawn, the image 
should still continue reflected on it for a certain 
time, becoming fainter and fainter until it finally 

1 See especially the use which Bishop Butler has made of 
these in his Analogy, chap. i. and chap. v. 



188 NATURE OF THE FANCY. 

disappeared. This would represent the law of con- 
tinuity. Imagine that when a book and a man had 
been once placed before it together, it should be 
able, when the book was next brought alone, to re- 
call the image of the man also. This would be the 
law of association. On these two laws depends the 
spontaneous activity of the mind. They scarcely 
require illustration ; and the fact at present is all 
that I am concerned to shew. Does a sound dwell 
on the ear when the vibration of the air has ceased ? 
Does an image rest on the retina when the wave of 
light has passed away ? Look at the sun, and then 
close the eye. Do you still see a ball of light ? 
Does an object of love, or hate, or fear, dwell upon, 
and haunt, and possess the imagination? Is there 
such a thing as harping on a thought, reiterating 
it, or rather finding it reiterated by some agency 
within you, even when you dislike it ? Again, do 
we remember scenes past from the sight of scenes 
present ? Will a song bring tears into the eyes of 
a Savoyard with the thought of his country ? Will 
a little black dot suggest to a child the key of the 
piano which she is to strike ? Can persons talk 
fluently, the words flowing into their minds, they 
know not whence, in the order in which they have 
recurred before ? And in both these operations, 
remember, the mind, though seemingly active^ is 
in reality passive. It follows a bias given to it by 
nature. It walks away, like the man in the Ger- 
man tale when mounted on his steam-leg. And 
though it may be governed and controlled, the move- 
ment itself is mechanical. We do not will the 
thought before it rises in our mind. We do not 
choose the word that comes uppermost. We know 
nothing of the train of ideas which in a day- 
dream will come upon the mind in wild fantas- 
tic procession, The poet cannot anticipate the 



CH. XIV.] INFLUENCE OF PLEASURE. 189 

bright visions which spring up before him. They 
come from without ; and all that he can do is to 
repel them when they come. Is not this a para- 
lytic movement, or, at least, a troublesome spon- 
taneity, over which it behoves us much to keep 
watch, and to control it, lest it lead us into mis- 
chief? Is it not like the tendency of the molten 
metal to overflow and break the mould ; a tendency 
which will produce nothing but a shapeless unmean- 
ing lump, unless the limits of the mould are strong 
enough to repress it ? 

But, consider, is there not something in our na- 
ture which lulls us to sleep on our post, unnerves 
our resistance, binds us hand and foot, so that we 
permit the movement to take its course, to call up 
fancy after fancy, which occupy the mind until they 
become fixed in it, and take the form and solidity 
of real substance, and we can no longer repel them, 
and must submit to receive them as the standard and 
rule of our actions, and to fight against every intru- 
sive reality w r hich would dispute with them the pos- 
session of our hearts ? 

Is not this the magical influence of pleasure ? 
Do we not willingly admit a train of ideas which 
are agreeable ? Is it not hard to repel them ? and 
still harder to succumb at once to such as are full 
of pain ? 

Now what I would especially point out is, that 
by a remarkable constitution of Nature, as we are 
thus subject to the influence of pleasure, so pleasure 
is peculiarly attached to the operations of the fancy, 
and peculiarly dissevered at first from the perception 
of real external truths. " To let our heart cheer us in 
the days of our youth, and to walk in the ways of our 
heart, and in the sight of our eyes" (Eccles. xi. 9), is 
easy and very agreeable. To obey God's command- 
ments, which our own heart did not frame — this is 



190 PLEASURE OF THE FANCY. 

striving to enter at a strait gate and narrow way. 
Now how is it, that pleasure is thus connected with 
fancy rather than truth, with the imaginations of our 
own heart, rather than with the stern realities of life ? 
In the first place, then, the mind once set in 
motion runs on of itself into its own channels, and 
cannot be checked without an effort : and effort is 
painful. A boy sits down before his book : some 
word suggests to him a game at ball. Instantly his 
imagination diverges from the book to the play- 
ground, and to recall it is a hard task ; to indulge it 
is full of pleasure. He cannot make the effort ; and 
the task is not learned. An astronomer, as Newton, 
observes some fact in a star ; instantly his ima- 
gination, or power of stringing together new com- 
binations of ideas, springs out into a large theory, 
explanatory of the whole system^ of the universe. 
And the ideas follow each other so readily, and 
their symmetry is so fascinating, that it requires a 
struggle to break them off, and fix the attention 
once more upon facts. It is thus that men delight 
in throwing themselves back in an easy chair, and 
abandoning the mind to its own reveries ; that they 
sit for hours by the side of a flowing stream, not 
listening (for listening implies an effort), but allow- 
ing all their senses to stand open, and admit every 
object that appears — the ripple on the water, the 
floating clouds, the wandering insect, the murmuring 
of leaves, the songs of the birds, all the wavering 
lights and shades of a summer noon, — and they call 
it luxury. But to keep one thought steadily before 
the mind, to put curbs and bridles into the mouth 
of our restless wandering fancy, to prohibit the ap- 
proach of every idea which does not combine with 
our leading enquiry, — this is the act of thinking ; 
and with it the brow becomes wrinkled, and the hair 
turns grey. 



CH. XIV.] PLEASURE OF THE FANCY. 191 

But, secondly, the images and thoughts which 
do thus intrude into the mind are those which have 
come there before most frequently ; and none come 
so frequently, because none are so easily admitted, 
as those which are mixed with pleasure. Thus 
dreams, not of misery in future, but of happiness ; 
visions, not of deformity, but of beauty ; retrospects, 
not of shame and suffering, but of scenes which 
flattered our pride, or which enhance our pre- 
sent enjoyment, — are the ordinary occupants of an 
idle mind, the natural creation of an uncontrolled 
fancy. 

Thirdly, the very nature of reality, of the ex- 
ternal world in general, as it appears to us, is im- 
perfection, compared with the perfection which the 
mind is capable of conceiving. And thus fiction is 
always more pleasurable than truth. Place before 
the eye the most beautiful landscape, and the fancy 
can always heighten a colour, or soften a shadow, 
or new-model a line, or enlarge a dimension ; or, 
at any rate, conceive something new, and therefore 
more interesting than the present scene, and not 
liable to certain objections which may be made to 
the one before us. Place a man in possession of a 
world ; load him with wealth ; let him have " gar- 
dens and orchards, and trees and pools of water, 
servants and maidens, silver and gold" — "let not 
whatsoever his eyes desire be kept from him," — and 
yet he will point out some defect ; a black spot in 
his own heart, if not in the objects which he grasps 
— a yearning for something infinite, whereas all that 
he possesses is finite ; and he will still find out a 
wish to gratify, a want to be supplied. This power 
of boundless conception, or of surpassing all reality, 
is inherent in the human mind. It is an important 
fact in the science of Ethics. If it were to be ex- 
plained formally, we might say that no object can 



192 PLEASURES OF THE BODY. 

be presented to the mind without its possessing 
limits ; otherwise it is no object at all, for it can 
have no shape, or figure, or definite character. If I 
see a stone, it must be square, or round, of a cer- 
tain size, occupying a certain place. If I hear of a 
liberal act, it must be shewn in making such an 
amount of sacrifice to a person of such qualities, 
under such and such circumstances of difficulty. 
And that which describes the act, also defines, 
marks out certain limits, within which it was con- 
fined. But the very notion of a limit implies that 
we perceive something beyond it. Nothing is per- 
ceived to bound us, but that which checks us when 
advancing. The mind, at least, always overshoots 
the mark, and then is recalled. No one is warned 
against trespassing till he has passed the hedge. No 
man feels confined by narrowness of income, till he 
has wants which surpass it. No man is conscious 
of his weakness, till he has made attempts beyond 
his power. Thus infinity is the essential law of the 
human imagination, and finiteness the natural con- 
dition of real existences in this world. Hence novels, 
poetry, romance ; theories which endeavour to ex- 
hibit strict unity, order, and other qualities of intel- 
lectual beauty, in a far higher degree than we find 
them in the reality ; fictions of characters possessing 
heroic, divine attributes, of events of magnitude, 
danger, felicity, beyond what meets us in common 
life. They all, as Bacon has observed, are contrived 
to gratify the longing of the human mind for that in- 
finite perfection which it cannot find in the world. 

But, fourthly, besides these pleasures of the ima- 
gination, there are certain pains to which the body 
is liable — hunger, thirst, cold, and all the other 
animal feelings of our nature ; which, without any 
active part being taken by ourselves in provoking 
them, rise up from the constitution of our body, and 



CH. XIV.J PLEASURES OF THE BODY. 193 

naturally suggest their own relief, and the pleasure 
attending it. And indeed all painful things what- 
ever — as, for instance, want, poverty, disappoint- 
ment, humiliation, the sufferings of those whom we 
love, the triumph of persons whom we hate — pain- 
ful as they are in themselves, yet are pleasurable in 
the prospect of relief. And even objects naturally 
horrible, and with which no thought of relief is 
coupled, possess a species of fascination by throw- 
ing the mind into strong emotion ; every conscious- 
ness of emotion being a consciousness of power, and 
connected with the perception of greatness in the 
object which excites it. And thus the mind is 
tempted to dwell on them, and they take possession 
of our thoughts, and finally of our actions. 

Often, also, it is not easy to repel them, because 
they seem to come at first under the aspect of a 
positive command from the Being who created us. 
" It is my duty," a hungry man argues, " to sup- 
port life. I am commanded not to perish by thirst. 
I ought to raise myself in the world ; to improve my 
condition ; to obtain the respect of my fellow-crea- 
tures ; to relax myself occasionally in enjoyment ; 
to have strong feelings and emotions. *' And thus 
when these pleasurable imaginations come to the 
gate of our heart asking for admission, the porter 
mistakes, or affects to mistake, their request for an 
order from superior authority, opens the wicket to 
let a few pass in for an hour ; and when the wicket 
is passed, they seize the porter, bind him down, 
open the great gates, and the whole troop come 
pouring in, and master the citadel. 

One more remark may be made : that something 
at least of the pleasure of indulging our imagination 
arises even from the very positiveness of the com- 
mands against it — 

" The more thou dam'st it up, the more it burns." 
s 



194 LAW AGGRAVATES DESIRE. 

When a child is suffered to walk in a garden, 
he is especially told by his parent not to touch 
any fruit. Here is an external law imposed on 
him, and his goodness and duty lies in not trans- 
gressing it. But the very prohibition suggests to 
him the thought of violating it ; it shews that viola- 
tion is possible ; that there is something within his 
reach, which he has only to stretch out his hand to 
obtain. It shews, also, that the parent's eye is with- 
drawn, and has left him to himself. The love of 
freedom springs up ; a little inclination for assert- 
ing independence ; a little suspicion that what is so 
scrupulously guarded must be very delicious ; and 
a little disposition to engage in a battle with the 
authority which is thus stern. The very solemnity 
of a prohibition, and the severity of conditions 
guarding it, will irritate this desire to evade it by 
impressing the fact more strongly on the mind. 
Go up to the most quiet person in the world, and 
dare him, under violent threats, to strike you, and 
see if he will not do so at last. Tell a child not to 
put the candle to the bed- curtains, for that he will 
infallibly be burned, and enlarge at the same time 
on the horrors of fire, and ten chances to one but 
the next night your house will be burnt down. And 
this is the explanation of that common proverb, 
" that stolen things are sweetest," and others of the 
same kind. If you do not want to put a vice into a 
person's mind, say nothing against it. And thus it 
seems St. Paul speaks with the same distinctness : 
*'■ I had not known lust (or concupiscence, or desire 
generally), except the law had said, Thou shalt not 
covet. But sin, taking occasion by the command- 
ment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence ; 
for without the law sin was dead. For I was alive 
without the law once ; but when the commandment 
came, sin revived, and I died. And the command- 



CH. XIV.] PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES. 195 

ment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto 
death. For sin, taking occasion by the command- 
ment, deceived me, and by it slew me" (Rom. vii.). 1 

This, then, seems to be the explanation of that 
sinful tendency inherent in human nature, which all 
moralists have acknowledged — a tendency to err 
from the right road, to act independently of the 
positive laws under which we are placed by God — 
to follow our own will instead of his commands. 
And if you, the reader, will look into it carefully, 
you will find that it involves some very important 
and practical applications. 

In the first place, it accounts for sin being called 
so commonly in the Bible, the "imagination of man's 
heart." Its chief seat lies in the intellect, in an 
aberration of thought. This aberration, indeed, may 
be stimulated by mere animal sensation, as when the 
thought of stealing is suggested by the sense of hun- 
ger ; or its correction may be made difficult by the 
corporeal pain which is always connected with ex- 
ertion of the mind ; or it may be made more tempt- 
ing by corporeal pleasures associated with its in- 
dulgence. And thus it may also be said, that the 
original seat of sin lies in the flesh, inasmuch as the 
pleasure which gives force to the fancy is undoubt- 
edly the result of a bodily emotion. It is felt some- 
where in the body ; and perhaps without the body 
there would be neither pleasure nor pain. But as 
these sensations are mainly out of our power ; as we 
cannot help feeling pain and pleasure when our 
body is affected in such and such a manner, — our 
business with sin lies chiefly there, where we can 
cope with it, — in our thoughts. 

1 The reader must be careful to bear in mind the remainder 
of St. Paul's answer to the question, which will naturally arise : 
"Is the law sin ?" otherwise such statements as these are not 
without danger. 



196 ESSENCE OF EVIL. 

Secondly, our business with these thoughts is 
mainly to prohibit the entrance of all those which 
are bad. You cannot help their appearing ; for they 
come by an instinctive working of machinery within 
us, over which you have no control. You cannot 
tell what thoughts will follow each other, how they 
are strung together, how one train wakes up a 
second, and that a third, by little signs impercep- 
tible, it would seem, to all but themselves. Till the 
thought is actually present, you know nothing of 
it ; otherwise it would be both present and absent 
at the same time. But before it fixes itself, you have 
the power of preventing it ; just as Nature has also 
given you the opportunity of stopping the words 
which come into your head, before they pass the 
"barrier of the teeth," and become irrevocable. 

Thirdly, you will ask, what is a bad thought? 
and I am going to give you an answer which will 
appear harsh and overstated. I say, then, that every 
thought is bad which is erroneous ; and every one is 
erroneous which is not conformable to some exter- 
nal mould, rule, law, or form, which you did not 
invent yourself, but found placed over you by a 
superior authority, and that authority emanating 
from God. Sin, in the Greek of the Bible, is 
'ocfxocpria, " error," not hitting the mark, a deviation 
from a right line. It is also called lawlessness, 
Tra^ayoju-ia. By Socrates it was made identical with 
falsity ; and virtue was called a science, ETncWpi, as 
depending on our perception of things as they really 
and truly are ; in other words, on our making our 
own internal notions of things coincide with that 
nature which they possess independently of us. So 
also Aristotle makes reason, or the faculty by which 
we discover truth, an essential element in ev^ry act 
of virtue. I model the figure of a man. Has it any 
external type or counterpart ? Yes ; a figure in my 



CH. XIV.] ESSENCE OF EVIL 197 

own fancy. But has this any original in the real 
external world ? No ; then undoubtedly it is bad. 
I compose a piece of music. How do the notes 
follow each other ? simply as they occurred to my 
own caprice, or according to some deeper law of 
harmony, which I can trace in the natural constitu- 
tion of what is called the ear — a law laid down by 
Him who made the ear ? If the former, the music 
is worthless ; if the latter, it is good. I classify a 
number of plants. Have I made the classification 
myself? is it purely arbitrary ? have I followed any 
other's guidance, or are the classes distinguished 
in nature as I have distinguished them in theory? 
These are the questions to be asked before we can 
pronounce on its goodness. A bad history is one 
which does not record facts as they occurred. A 
bad philosophy is one which shews no respect for 
our experience of the facts of nature. A bad ser- 
vant is one who acts on his own impulses, not on 
the commands of his master. A bad feeling is that 
which is excited by false appearances : as jealousy, 
when there is no ground for suspicion ; hatred, when 
the object is lovable ; fear, when we fear what is 
despicable ; confidence in self, when ourselves are 
vanity. A bad act is one which departs from the 
standard erected for us by God. A bad appetite is 
one which covets an ideal, imaginary object, and 
clothes it with qualities which in truth it does not 
possess. And without this sense of external law, 
not made by ourselves, this deliberate resolution to 
adhere to it, this consciousness of acting up to it, — 
I say that every act, however harmless it may seem, 
even though its effects be good, and externally itself 
be conformed precisely to the will of God, yet it is 
bad and worthless. It wants the essential condition 
of moral goodness. How true this is, will be seen 
more clearly as we proceed. 
s 2 



198 ESSENCE OF EVIL. 

Fourthly, you will observe that this definition of 
virtue, as obedience to external law, of vice as the 
neglect of it, accords with all those theories of mo- 
rals, which describe a good action as one which is 
conformed to the real relations of things, to eternal 
distinctions between right and wrong, as one which 
is pointed out by right reason, which is agreeable 
to truth, to the laws of nature, and even to the rule 
of conscience, — for conscience, like the Daemon of 
Socrates, is always a prohibitory law, telling us not 
what should be done, but what should not be done ; 
and then only a safe guide, as being clearly of ex- 
ternal origin, not invented by ourselves, since we 
do not invent what fetters and shackles us in our 
inclinations. It accords still more precisely with 
those who define goodness by the will of God ; 
since every positive institution is thus traced up to 
God ; and those men only are to be taken as our 
guide, who are appointed by God, profess to deliver 
God's law, to found their whole authority on His 
commission. And it shews clearly the necessity of 
referring not only to revelation generally, but to 
the Catholic Church, as our primary authority in 
morals, since in no other way can we learn what 
God did reveal to man, except by the witness of 
the Apostles ; nor what the Apostles witnessed to, 
except by the consenting Catholic testimony of the 
independent Churches which they founded in dif- 
ferent parts of the world. 

You might go through all the systems of Ethics, 
and you would find that they all virtually concurred 
in recognising the observance of some external 
standard of right and wrong, instead of our own 
fancy, as the first condition of all goodness. Thus 
Plato places virtue in the knowledge of the to. ovra,, 
the immutable attributes and laws of God, by con- 
forming to which we become like to God. Aristotle, 



CH. XIV.] \ ESSENCE OF EVIL. 199 

in the observance of a mean ; or in accommodating 
our feelings and actions to the exact measure of the 
circumstances in which we act ; and in discovering 
this mean, we must be guided by the opinion of 
wise men, ol ^ov*/xo*. So the modern Utilitarians, 
false and miserable as their speculations are, could 
not escape from the necessity of calculating conse- 
quences in order to test the good or evil of an act ; 
these consequences being as much an external rule 
as any revelation from God to man. So, also, the 
school w r hich makes benevolence the essence of 
goodness recognises the necessity of destroying all 
self-will. The Stoics, who would extirpate pleasure, 
traced to it the principal influence in encouraging 
internal noxious fancies. Even the Sceptics and 
Sophists, who made every man " the measure of all 
things," and the will of man his only law, were 
obliged to fall back upon Nature, and say that 
Nature had framed us to feel such appetites and 
passions, and therefore, because Nature had so 
framed us, they were true and real. In all cases, 
an external law is recognised, and conformity to it 
is made goodness, and departure from it vice. Nor 
could it be otherwise, if indeed what we stated is 
true : that man cannot act, or feel, or think, with- 
out the consciousness of something in him and also 
of something external to himself. 

Lastly, I would recall your attention to what 
was said on the precise nature of the struggle to be 
maintained, w T hen we would bring our hearts and 
minds " into obedience to the law of God." For 
practically this is the point on which the age is 
most ignorant, and our success is most involved. 
And as it will rather startle you at first, and require 
some explanation, we will postpone it for the next 
chapter. 



200 NATURE OF DESIRE. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Those who have studied the sculpture of the Greeks 
are inclined to suppose that each statue is the repre- 
sentative of human nature in some particular atti- 
tude, character, or development ; representing, for 
instance, strength, grace, purity, dignity or some 
other general attribute. Mow, if we were called on 
to embody in a statue the human mind engaged in 
a struggle to be virtuous, wrestling as the anointed 
wrestler, and as he is described by the Church 
when speaking of the warfare of a Christian, in 
what attitude should we place it ? This is the 
question before us. But there are two postures 
only in which a combatant can be placed, as there 
are but two battles which he can be called on to 
fight. In one he is endeavouring to gain something 
which he does not possess ; in the other, he is en- 
deavouring to preserve something which he pos- 
sesses already. Shall we place our statue in a de- 
fensive or offensive position, grasping at the distant, 
or holding firm the present — the image of desire, or 
of precaution ? 

You are ready at once to answer, that a Chris- 
tian, or any good man, is struggling to make him- 
self good, to obtain the praise of God, to secure 
heaven, to promote the happiness of his fellow- 
creatures, to conform himself to the image of God, 
to purify his mind ; that, as an artist, he has before 
him an image of perfection which he is constantly 
striving to realise ; that, as a philosopher, his whole 
business is with discovering, extending truth, im- 



CH. XV.] NATURE OF DESIRE. 201 

proving society, contemplating vast conquests and 
advancements in science, which will make the fu- 
ture a paradise, where the past has been a wilder- 
ness ; that, as a moralist, he can never be satisfied 
while there is a higher point of goodness to be 
reached ; that he has an inextinguishable craving 
for an approximation to the Divine nature, and his 
whole being is a hunger and thirst till he obtains it. 
You would place him at once in the attitude of de- 
sire. But, hark ! were there not some little words 
in that last sentence which may cause a misgiving. 
" Never satisfied !" " inextinguishable craving !" Is 
this, then, the true and rightful position of a human 
mind ? The Greeks said, yes. " Every art and 
every science," says Aristotle, in the first words 
of his Ethics, " and in like manner every moral 
act and moral choice, seems to aim at some end." 
'E$*£<70a*, to throw itself upon, as a hound springing 
on its prey ; o^yso-Oai, to stretch itself out after ; 
£(fo^^rGat, to move upon ; cupere, to catch at ; ap- 
petere, to go straight to, — are the Greek and Latin 
words expressing the attitude we are conceiving. 
To long after, or stretch out the body at full length, 
to grasp at, catch, follow after, are similar English 
metaphors. 

Let us consider the question. 

And, first, is it not suspicious that the elements of 
which the feeling of desire or appetite is composed 
are so similar to that action of the mind to which 
we have just been tracing the principle of sin ? For 
an object to be desired, it must be absent in reality, 
yet present in the mind ; brought into it by that 
imaginative power which peoples the world with 
dreams and visions of past or future, until it blinds 
our eyes to the realities that are present. And it 
must also be pleasant, otherwise we should not 
dwell on it. But unreality and pleasure were the two 



202 TWO ATTITUDES OF MIND. 

marks set on all sinful thoughts. Yes, you will say, 
the desire of confessedly bad objects is itself bad, 
there can be no doubt ; but is desire itself bad ? 
has it in itself " the nature of sin ?" Let the object 
be good, will it not even be a virtue ? Ought we 
not to strive after perfection, to fight for a crown, 
to hunger and thirst after righteousness ? This is 
the question which I now wish to examine, and here 
seems to lie the fundamental difference between 
Christian and heathen Ethics. The highest effort 
of heathen Ethics was to place the human mind in 
the attitude of ardent desire after goods which it 
could only imagine, but did not possess ; but this 
very attitude is full of imperfection and error. 
Whereas Christianity throws him into the other 
attitude, of defending what he possesses already ; 
and this is the proper posture originally contem- 
plated by nature, but incapable of being realised 
until the gifts as well as the laws of Christianity 
were made known to the world. Have I stated the 
distinction clearly ? It is worthy the deepest atten- 
tion ; for we shall see that the perception of it is 
necessary to understand the ethical character of 
Christian doctrine ; that by confusing it, this doc- 
trine was corrupted ; and that it brings out into the 
fullest light the wonders, and privileges, and re- 
sponsibilities of the Church- 
Compare, then, generally the two attitudes as if 
they were embodied in sculpture, and think which 
presents at first sight the higher features of good- 
ness. In the one there is the consciousness of a 
want — the feebleness, discontent, restlessness, fever- 
ish excitement, which always accompanies want. In 
this troubled state of the heart, the object which is 
to fill it can scarcely be seen in its real and true 
proportions : it will be magnified, distorted, misun- 
derstood. In the straining after it, there will be a 



CH. XV.] DESIRE EVIL. 203 

tendency to overlook other things, the things which 
are present ; to sacrifice positive duties ; to think 
little of means compared with ends : 

So study evermore is overshot : 
While it doth study to have what it would, 
It doth forget to do the thing it should. 
And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, 
'Tis won, as towns with fire ; so won, so lost 

Love's Labour's lost, act i. sc. ] . 

Desire also is essentially selfish. It springs from 
the sense of a want within ourselves, which can only 
be filled up by something given to ourselves. It 
implies dependence on external things over which 
we have no control ; for if they were within our 
power, we should possess them at once ; and this 
dependence has always been recognised by moralists 
as a blot in the perfection of man : avri^Kuo^ or 
independence, is placed by Aristotle among the first 
conditions of human happiness. It is not permanent: 
if satisfied, it ceases. And thus, if desire were a 
good, the attainment of its end would destroy itself. 
If not satisfied, it sinks into weariness, disappoint- 
ment, disgust, and despair. It tends to absorb the 
thoughts in one single object, whereas the condition 
of man requires that he should be constantly look- 
ing round him in every direction, watching over not 
one passion, but many passions ; fulfilling not one 
duty, but many duties ; guarding not against one 
temptation, but many temptations. " He is a crea- 
ture," says Bishop Butler, " endowed with particular 
affections ;" and if he fixes his eye on any one singly, 
the rest will run wild, and hurry him into ruin. There 
is, moreover, in desire that want of repose, firmness, 
dignity, and self-confidence, which mark a truly 
noble and heroic character. There is a want also 
of trust and acquiescence in the will of Him, by 
whom all our positions in the world are marked out, 



204 DESIRE EVIL. 

all movement regulated, all turned to good. Energy 
indeed there is, which is one quality of goodness ; 
but it is an energy impatient, unruly, and intempe- 
rate ; more resembling the convulsive movements of 
one in pain and fretfulness, than the steady actions 
of one under law and discipline. These are mere 
hints. But if a statue were formed in this spirit, the 
eye distended, the arms stretched out to grasp at a 
shadow, every nerve strained, every lineament be- 
tokening restlessness and pain ; though it were a 
noble figure, animated with the noblest longing after 
the noblest of objects, would it be a spectacle on 
which the eye could rest with perfect satisfaction 
and approbation ? 

And now look into the images of the human 
mind set before us in heathen philosophy — in the 
heroic periods of ancient history — even in those 
modern theories and works of fiction, in which men, 
without formally abjuring Christianity, have entirely 
departed from its principles, — and see if almost all 
the personages whom you trace there are not painted 
in the attitude of desire ; and if to this very cause 
is not owing that morbid feverishness and discom- 
fort, that vague empty aspiration after unreal per- 
fection, that gloomy discontent, and final self-aban- 
donment, which make indeed the interest, but un- 
make the real dignity and goodness of the minds 
that study them. Who are called the greatest phi- 
losophers ? Men who are struggling to discover 
truth, who feel that they do not yet possess it, but 
long for some clear and §olid knowledge which may 
satisfy their doubts. Who are the great heroes? 
Men filled with a craving for conquest, revenge, 
fame, or power. Who are the noble minds, held up 
to admiration in our works of fiction, and especially 
in the biography of modern German writers ? Those 
who are described as imbued from their birth with 



CH. XV.] EVIL EFFECTS OF DESIRE. 205 

a vague, indescribable, but unconquerable passion 
for "the beautiful," " the infinite," " the perfect ;" 
whose whole life seems an effort to realise a dream, 
to grasp, like Ixiom, a cloud, with which they have 
fallen in love ; and when the cloud melts away in 
their grasp, who sink down into a miserable gloom 
and despair. Look at the religion of the East, and 
you may trace, not only the superstitions of heathen- 
ism, but the false asceticism of a corrupted Chris- 
tianity, to the principle of desire — the desire for ob- 
taining perfection. Hence self-invented tortures ; 
hence withdrawal from the duties of life ; hence efforts 
to stimulate the imagination, to generate ecstacies 
and raptures, to obtain communion with God by 
some mode which He has not appointed. Look, 
again, at the corruptions of Romanism, all of them 
traceable originally to the desire (and if any desire 
can be such, surely a laudable desire) of spreading 
Christianity, impressing the truth forcibly on igno- 
rant minds, holding man in subjection to the spiri- 
tual law of God, and preserving peace and unity in 
the Church. Once more, what were the crimes of 
the Reformation but the outbreaks of desire — on 
one side, of avarice and cupidity, in the authors of 
plunder and sacrilege ; on the other, of imaginary 
purity, and a new invented model of Christianity, in 
those who were the least guilty instigators of those 
innovations which in Germany have ended at this 
day almost in the loss of Christianity ? And, lastly, 
what is the present attitude of what is called the 
public mind, not only in this country, but through- 
out Europe ? Is it not longing for change, antici- 
pating some new discovery, which shall make society 
happy, and government faultless, and man a god? 
Does it not speak of the past as a blank, and of the 
future as fraught with glory ? Progress, and ad- 
vancement, and improvement, are in every mouth ; 

T 



206 ATTITUDE OF POSSESSION. 

and he is thought the wisest and the greatest man 
who can form the most gigantic schemes of coming 
good, and pursue them with the most restless avi- 
dity. And yet in all this we feel, and must feel, 
that there is something hollow. Self-will, and ra- 
tionalism, and conceit, and disquiet, and disappoint- 
ment, and fanaticism of one kind or another, and 
indifference to law, are visible throughout. 

I mean these suggestions merely as hints, to 
throw you on inquiring into the real nature of that 
state of mind which is produced by the principle of 
desire, even under the most favourable aspect. 

And now compare it with the other attitude, in 
which a better philosophy would place it. 

Give a man that which he values. Surround 
him with enemies who threaten to take it from him. 
Inspire him not only with an ardent affection for 
that which he possesses, but with confidence in a 
power within him to retain possession of it. And 
then watch the temper and posture in which he will 
gird himself for this defensive struggle. There will 
be as much energy and vigour as in the other sup- 
posed case. But it will be quiet, vigilant, thought- 
ful, full of dignity and repose, with no effort misdi- 
rected, no power wasted, no impatience or restless- 
ness ; contented, definite in its objects, clear and 
precise in its views, satisfied with the present, free 
from vague unbridled fancies, and, above all, recog- 
nising in all its movements a fixed positive external 
law by which to direct them. Place before you two 
combatants in a real personal battle ; one struggling 
to kill his antagonist, the other only to defend him- 
self; and which would offer the noblest object to 
satisfy the eye of a spectator ? 

And now turn to the history of human nature ; 
and wherever it appears in true nobility of charac- 
ter, you will find it assumes this posture. Leonidas 



CH. XV.] ATTITUDE OF POSSESSION. 207 

dying for his country is a far snblimer spectacle than 
Alexander rapaciously subduing the world. The 
old Barons of England claiming their Magna Charta, 
not as new-imagined privileges, but as their old "un- 
doubted birthright," are a very different class of 
men from modern demagogues and reformers. The 
old schools of philosophy, which struggled only to 
maintain and diffuse an ancient hereditary faith, are 
of an infinitely higher character in all their doctrines 
than the Grecian sects, each aiming at a new theory 
of its own, and denying that truth had ever yet ap- 
peared in the world. Our own English reformers 
surpassed, by common consent, the reformers of the 
rest of Europe in this very point, that they chose 
rather to defend what was old, than to strain after 
what was new. So also in the best of States, laws 
are not creative, but prohibitive ; they do not place 
before their eyes an imaginary perfection, and then 
force men on to attain it ; they are content with 
guarding the boundaries of goodness, as if it were 
already possessed, and only driving back those who 
would transgress them. So also in reason. Sound 
philosophy has always been that which cut off from 
popular opinions excrescences and superfluities only, 
leaving the body of them untouched, and only pro- 
testing against errors. The unsound always bears 
on its face the profession of new-invented dogmas, 
and the establishment of a creed of its own. So also 
in art, in poetry, in all the creative faculties. The 
works before which men have bowed down in ad- 
miration have not sprung from any desire in the 
mind of producing something grand and striking. 
Wherever this desire has been fostered, the result 
has been extravagance and conceit. Great, com- 
posers in all arts work by an instinct, by an enthu- 
siasm, which supersedes thought, which forms con- 
ceptions from without, which hurries them away 



208 ATTITUDE OF POSSESSION. 

under the impulse of feeling (an impulse of which 
they can give no account), by means of which 
they are not conscious, to results which they them- 
selves are rarely able to appreciate. All that reason 
does, is to stand as sentinel over the instinctive 
movements of the mind, and stop them when trans- 
gressing law. Hence, when the critic presumes to 
create, he always fails ; hence " poets are born, not 
made ;" hence the highest ebullitions of genius have 
always been accompanied with something that bor- 
ders on absence of mind, on enthusiasm, almost on 
madness ; hence, the instant that rules have been 
laid down for making fine statues, or fine poems, 
or fine speeches, or fine buildings, excellence has 
disappeared from the world — just as if we endea- 
voured to put a carriage in motion, by substituting 
for the horses which draw it the reins which are 
intended to guide them. 

The principle is universal. Apply it in educa- 
tion. Take a child, and instead of allowing nature 
to work of itself, while you only stand by and guard 
it from excesses and aberrations, frame to yourself 
a scheme of perfection, prescribe every movement, 
mould every limb, direct every action, suggest every 
feeling ; and then compare the bandaged, crippled, 
helpless, distorted mummy, which your art produces, 
with the healthy vigorous boy who has grown up 
by the mountain- side, under the free air of heaven, 
under no other control but that which endeavoured 
to save it from evil, instead of producing good. 

It would take a volume to trace out the full 
application of this principle. But let us bear it in 
mind, as we study the history of man, and espe- 
cially in the view which we are now taking of the 
initiative rites by which the Christian Church com- 
mences the education of its members. And let us 
also distinguish clearly between that principle of 



CH. XV.J TWO SENSES OF DESIRE. 209 

desire here spoken of, in which men are struggling 
to obtain something which they never possessed, and 
a feeling often described under the same name, in 
which they dread or lament the loss of something 
which they did once possess. In this latter sense, 
desire must necessarily exist where weak men are 
fighting against powerful enemies, to defend a trea- 
sure which they deeply value. In this sense, there- 
fore, it is inseparable from human nature and from 
Christianity. And whenever it is spoken of in the 
Bible, as it often is, as the trait of a comparatively 
noble character ; when men are said " to hunger and 
thirst after righteousness ;" " their souls to be athirst 
for the living God; ? ' "to gasp after God as a thirsty 
land ;" to long after him " as the heart longeth for 
the water-brooks,'' — it will be found, I think, that 
the expression applies either to those men who are 
not yet supposed to have received the great gift of 
Christianity, or to those who have experienced or 
anticipate a temporary loss of it. It means " de- 
siderium," rather than " cupido." 



T 2 



210 BLESSINGS GIVEN AT BAPTISM. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

In the present time, when so much ignorance pre- 
vails on the views of the early Church respecting 
the real and mysterious effects of the rite of Bap- 
tism, it will be safer to describe them in the words 
of our own Church ; and they will best explain the 
forms employed in antiquity. All that I am desirous 
to point out at present is, that by the rite of Baptism 
the Church places the recipient in an entirely new 
position ; gives him a great blessing, which he is 
hereafter to maintain ; gratifies the wants of his na- 
ture, instead of stimulating his desire ; restores him 
at once to a state of security and goodness, instead 
of urging him to save himself by some subsequent 
efforts, — in one word, throws him into an attitude of 
defence instead of desire, and fixes by this the nature 
of the struggle which he will have to maintain. By 
Baptism, says our Catechism, we are not merely urged 
or encouraged to become, but are actually made 
"members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of 
the kingdom of heaven." We are not told, that if 
we do right, we shall become new creatures, but are 
pronounced "regenerate" already, whatever regene- 
ration means : we are not urged to procure admis- 
sion into the society of the Church, but are declared 
to be already grafted into its body : we are not told 
of everlasting salvation as something future, but are 
already described as heirs of it. And if you will at- 
tentively examine the language of St. Paul whenever 
he speaks of the blessings of baptism, you will find 
that he uses the past tense. The very things which 



CII. XVI.] NOT MERELY OFFERED. 211 

a heathen moralist would most desire, such as the 
mortification of the flesh, the death unto sin, the 
creation of a new spirit within us, the enlightenment 
of the mind, the admission into a noble spiritual 
polity, the cleansing of the conscience, the forgive- 
ness of sins, and restoration to the favour of God, and 
union with his nature, — all these are described in 
the Bible as effected by Baptism already. It is some- 
thing past and done. And the subsequent struggle, 
for struggle there must be, is to defend what we have 
received, to secure ourselves from falling from the 
high estate in which we have been placed. And the 
pain, and grief, and fear, necessarily attending such 
a struggle in the face of a deadly and powerful enemy, 
will not be the vague unsatisfied yearnings of the 
imagination for a distant good, but the bitter re- 
morse and anxiety for the loss of a treasure once 
possessed. I repeat the distinction again and again, 
because it is of vital importance. It is the grand 
separation between Christian and heathen Ethics. 

What, then, are the blessings thus conveyed to 
us by Baptism ? 

The first was thus indicated in the ancient 
Church by unclothing the person who came to be 
baptised. "When," says St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 1 
" ye entered (into the baptistery), you were stripped 
of your tunic ; and this was an image of your put- 
ting off the old man, wiih the deeds thereof. . . .For 
since the powers of the adversary used to burrow, as 
it were, and take up their abode in your limbs, no 
longer is it lawful for you to wear that clothing of 
the old body ; I mean not that which m e see, but 
the body of the old man, which is corrupted in the 
desires of deceit." 

And heathens, as well as the Church, have felt 

1 Catech. Mystag. xi. n. 11. p. 284. 



212 DEATH OF THE OLD MAN. 

and longed to be released from this burden of the 
old man : heathens, as well as Christians, have de- 
scribed their condition by nature as that of a living 
body tied down to a dead body, and struggling to 
cast it off. If Socrates was perplexed with the con- 
sciousness of this double nature, these two persons 
within him — one aspiring to all goodness, the other 
pulling him down to vice ; so the most ordinary 
men describe their evil actions as done when they 
were not themselves, when they were beside them- 
selves, when they were different persons ; and thus 
endeavour to apologise for crime. What this old 
man is, cannot be better described than in the scrip- 
tural language employed by St. Cyril : tov ttccXcuov 

CCV&pVTrOV TOV (fGfipO/XSVOy h TCfc* J Ive&VfJLlOllS T7)£ 007TCC- 

t*k,— -" the old man, which is being corrupted, led 
on to ruin by the desires of the principle of deceit," 
— or by those desires which lead us from truth and 
reality, and are founded on delusive imaginations. 
It is the mind of man, subject, as we have just de- 
scribed, to be hurried away by the pleasures of the 
body, and of the fancy, to frame images and schemes 
for itself which are not real. It is ourself, because 
it is our own mind following its own bias, and work- 
ing on its own inclinations. It is the old man, be- 
cause it is human nature as it originally exists, and 
must be abandoned for a new character. It is ruined, 
because ruin is the end ; mixed up with desire, be- 
cause desire and pleasure are the stimulants which 
put it in motion ; deceitful, because it does not con- 
form its imaginations to any real external standard. 
Every man who has once been misled by it feels 
its power and longs to be freed from it. Every 
man would wish it were possible that the senses 
should not tempt him to sensuality ; that his fancy 
should not deviate from truth; that his thoughts 
should not run wild; that his conceptions should 



CH. XVI.] DEATH OF THE OLD MAN. 213 

not be false ; that he should have the power of 
overruling this inordinate aberration of his mind, 
and making himself its master, instead of continuing 
its slave. For every man has felt the weariness and 
disappointment, the feverishness of false hope, the 
anxiety, the vapidness of success, the heavy load 
which lies upon the mind thus carried away by its 
own impulses, and would long to be relieved. And 
half the bustle and stir of life is an effort to escape. 
It is the movement of men, trying to fly from them- 
selves ; struggling to bury deep their own sense of 
discomfort and misery ; turning themselves round in 
their beds, as if they could thus shake off a load that 
oppresses them ; clambering up, as men forcing them- 
selves to the surface of the water, that they may es- 
cape a sense of suffocation, and clear their eyes from a 
mist of unreality, and behold a real sky, and breathe 
a pure atmosphere. So it is that Plato describes the 
convulsive movement of the human soul to burst 
from this old man within us, which fills us with false 
desires and empty show. His struggle was to " put 
off the old man, corrupt in the desires of deceit." 
But it lay before him as a sad and painful effort, 
only to be accomplished by a long life ; and of which 
the heathen youth whom he was rearing must have 
been taught to look forward to the end, before they 
had experience of its beginning. Christianity ac- 
complishes it at once ; tells us that we are free, de- 
clares that the old man is destroyed ; and only bids 
us take care that it does not revive. Heathenism 
puts its child before the face of a giant, and com- 
mands him to master it. Christianity prostrates the 
giant, and places the child over him with a sword 
at his neck, and only requires vigilance and confid- 
ence to prevent him from moving again. Heathen- 
ism finds him crushed within the coils of a serpent, 
and bids him struggle to escape. Christianity rescues 



214 DEATH OF THE OLD MAN. 

him wholly, and warns him against being entangled 
in the same snares again. 

And thus it is, that in our own baptismal service, 
previous to the rite itself, we pray that the " old 
Adam in this child may be so buried, that the new 
man may be raised up in him ; that all carnal affec- 
tions may die in him ; and that all things belonging 
to the Spirit may live and grow in him ; and that 
he may have power and strength," not merely to 
commence a struggle, " but to have victory, and tri- 
umph against the devil, the world, and the flesh." 

And so also St. Paul repeatedly says, " We are 
buried with him by baptism" (Rom. vi. 4 ; Coloss. 
ii. 12). 

And it was to typify this fact more strongly, that 
the ancient Church so scrupulously practised im- 
mersion. " Our being baptised and submerged be- 
neath the waters," says Chrysostom, " and then rising 
up, is a symbol of our descent into Hades, and of 
our rising from it again." 1 "Just as in a tomb, 
when you bow your head beneath the waters, the 
old man in you is buried, and plunging down, is 
hidden, the whole of it, once for all." 2 

How this was effected is another question. The 
Church promises to effect it. It performs a simple 
ceremony. It tells us that, under the veil of this 
outward right, a great inward work has been accom- 
plished. If we believe her voice, it is enough to 
place us wholly in a new position ; and entirely to 
alter the character of that struggle which she com- 
mands us to carry on through the rest of life. And 
the mode in which she explains the fact, she asserts, 
will appear hereafter. 

But there is something else beside the power of 
imagination and desire from which man must be 
freed, before he can attempt any thing great ; and 

1 Horn. xl. in 1 Cor. 2 Horn. xxv. in Joan iii. 6. 



CH. XVI.] CLEANSING FROM SIN. 215 

the attempt to make himself good is a great thing, 
requiring heroic courage, elevated thought, confid- 
ence in a power within us, untamed energy, uncon- 
quered patience. And before these things can enter 
into the heart of man, something must be wiped 
from it — a stain and blot. Man is by birth not only 
a weak and deluded, but a polluted creature ; that 
is, when placed in the presence of a perfectly pure 
and holy Being, he would feel, when looking at him- 
self, not only inferior in power, but unworthy of his 
affections. There would be a sense of demerit, of 
disgrace, of something which ought to be hidden. 
And this not only as an adult, when he reflected on 
his own bad acts, but even as an infant at its first 
entrance into life, were he capable at that time of 
comprehending himself. Every man bears about 
with him that of which he is ashamed ; which he 
cannot lay open even to a common eye, much less 
to an eye of purity. He has desires which he de- 
spises himself, and which therefore he dares not ex- 
hibit to be despised by others. He feels weakness, 
indolence, conceit, selfishness, ignorance, ten thou- 
sand emotions which he knows to be poor and de- 
grading. His very body, corrupted as it is, and 
formed partly for honour and partly for dishonour, 
drags him down, he scarcely knows how, to a level 
with brute animals whc m he holds in contempt. And 
when to all this is added the consciousness of will- 
ing submission to these debasing appetites and in- 
fluences, shame acquires additional power, and para- 
lyses every energy. He cannot confront the eye of 
a Being who is better than himself. He cannot act 
or walk with pure and holy spirits ; and without 
such a communion, he cannot be raised to make an 
effort at improvement. He must be left in solitude, 
and in solitude will perish. So when the Holy Spirit 
was taken from our first parent, Adam perceived that 



216 CLEANSING FROM SIN. 

he was naked, and hid himself from the face of 
God. And so also even of the infant : for pollution 
depends on something more than our own wilful 
act ; it is communicated by contagion. Its influ- 
ence spreads far wider than the spot on which it 
first rests. Why do men blush for the sins of their 
fathers ? Why are we jealous of the honour of our 
country ? Why do we preserve from contamination 
the monuments and deeds of our ancestors ? Why 
does a mere name carry with it infamy or glory ? 
Why does even the neighbourhood of vice conta- 
minate a whole district? Who likes to live in a 
house stained by some foul crime ? Who does not 
shrink even from sitting by the side of a convicted 
felon ? Purity indeed has an atmosphere around it 
spreading a little beyond the original circle of its 
seat : and children are loved for the sake of their 
parents, and families renowned for the virtue of 
their founder, and whole regions are consecrated 
by some one centre of holiness, and ages made 
memorable by some one deed accomplished in them. 
But the atmosphere of evil is far more elastic, more 
searching, more expansive, and permeates every 
thing that comes in contact with it. Hatred is 
more vehement than love ; it makes fewer discrimi- 
nations, pauses less, excites more strongly, presses 
on more rapidly to comprehend even the innocent 
with the guilty. So we are formed by nature in our 
moral instincts ; and so nature seems to act under 
an instinct much the same. The sin of a king in- 
volves the ruin of the nation. The shame of the 
father is a curse to his latest posterity. The touch 
of a plague- stricken man infects an army. And this 
especially in cases where the law of creation deve- 
lopes one thing from another. Corrupt the seed, 
and the whole tree which springs from it, and all 
the myriads of seeds and trees into which it may 



CH. XVI.] INFECTION OF EVIL. 217 

spread hereafter, will be corrupted too. Defile the 
fountain-head, and not the infusion of an ocean into 
the streams that flow from it will ever purify them 
to him who discerns the taint. And men are shut 
up in men ; whole races and individuals in the loins 
of their progenitors. And there is not merely an 
imaginary, but a real unity binding together every 
generation with that which preceded it ; and spread- 
ing through them all the same thread of good or of 
evil — but of evil chiefly. It is not for us to trace 
the mode in which an actual derangement of moral 
organisation may be propagated from man to man. 
But an actual pollution must be so spread when the 
parent has sinned, and the child springs from the 
parent. And so "in Adam all died.*' And even 
an infant, whose mind had never wandered into any 
thought of evil, would, if he could be made con- 
scious of his origin, blush for his connexion with a 
source of impurity — feel that there was a stain upon 
him, which made him unfit for communion with a 
Being of infinite purity, — and be unable to raise 
himself up manfully and nobly to the full exertion 
of his strength, till that stain were wiped out. He 
would be conscious of " original sin;" and this ori- 
ginal sin, as well as the shame of real actual guilt, 
the Church cleanses away by baptism, typifies the 
fact by ablution with water, restores the mind to the 
consciousness of purity, enables it to look up even 
to God himself with an open uncowering eye ; and 
to take its stand as a cleansed and holy thing, to 
enter fearlessly and proudly on the battle against 
the world, the flesh, and the devil. 



218 SPIRITUAL GIFTS IN BAPTI8M. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

But in the ancient Church even greater things than 
these were symbolised in the rite of Baptism. It 
was called not only a " death unto sin/' " an indul- 
gence or remission of sin," but " regeneration," " unc- 
tion," "illumination," "salvation," "a seal of the 
Lord," " the gift of Christ," " a consecration," " an 
initiation," "a glory." Some real gift was conveyed 
in it. And our own Church declares the same truth, 
when, in the Catechism, it speaks of baptism as that 
rite " wherein man is made a member of Christ, the 
child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of 
heaven." Disbelieve all that you can, deny all 
meaning in outward forms, reject the mystery as 
impossible, or as leading to practical evil — still 
you cannot escape from the historical fact, that for 
1800 years the rite of baptism has been transmitted 
through the Church as the supposed means of con- 
veying to man, some real, deep, incalculable blessing, 
which without it man cannot attain. And this over 
and above that destruction of the evil power in whose 
grasp we are born, and that removal of natural pol- 
lution, of which we have spoken already. 

Let us look into the human heart, and see if there 
is in it any chasm unfilled by Nature — any affec- 
tion for which Nature supplies no adequate object — 
any universal movement pervading all parts of so- 
ciety, but running into wildnesses and extravagances 
for the want of some definite path laid down for it. 
Perhaps then we may recognise better the meaning 
pf the words of the Catechism.. 



CH. XVII.] ONE PRINCIPLE OF DESIRE. 219 

There are, then, in the human mind an infinite 
variety of desires. And the whole movement of the 
world is impelled by them. It may be a desire to 
attain, or a desire to maintain a good. But it is in 
the prospect of some good, or the fear of some evil, 
that all men act. Stand in the most crowded tho- 
roughfare of London ; stop every one you meet — 
man, woman, and child — and every one would be 
able to tell you something which he wished or 
wanted, liked or disliked, and under the influence 
of which he was then pursuing his walk. The Ex- 
changes, the Church, the Senate-houses, the Courts 
of Law, the Picture-gallery, the Theatre, the Loung- 
ing-room, the Library, the Parks, the Ball-room, 
the Shop, the Hospital, the Coach-office, the Com- 
mittee-room, the Scientific Institution — every house, 
and every carriage, and every thing belonging to 
every individual within them — is the symbol of some 
want. Want is the expansive projectile power in 
the moral world. You may measure its strength by 
the weight which it lifts, as the vapour struggling 
under ground heaves up enormous mountains ; or 
as the propelling power of the sap in a tree may be 
calculated by the vast exuberance of the boughs 
and foliage which it throws forth. And the wants 
of men, we say, are infinite in number. Money, 
fame, power, honour, pleasure, knowledge, goodness, 
— all these we suppose are different objects, and 
there are different affections in the mind corres- 
ponding with them. Is this the fact ? I think not. 
Is not want in all these various shapes one and the 
same thing? Is not desire a single principle? just 
as the creative faculty in the sculptor is one and 
the same, whether it works in gold, or silver, or 
clay, or stone. To say, in the infinite multitude of 
arts, professions, and tastes, into which the world is 



220 UNITY THE OBJECT OF DESIRE. 

divided, that all men nevertheless desire one and the 
same thing, will appear a paradox. But let us see 
if it be true. If true, it will very much simplify our 
present inquiry. 

I assert, then, that in every thing which attracts 
the human taste, and excites desire, — in every thing 
which we pursue as an end, — there is but one qua- 
lity which moves the appetite. And that quality is 
Unity. As in geometry, let the truth to be proved 
be placed first before us in the form of a problem. 
Analyse the feelings and affections of every indivi- 
dual human being, when pursuing " the good," or 
admiring " the beautiful," or honouring " the great," 
or even in the relief of pain and enjoyment of plea- 
sure — and you will find that unity is the true object 
which he has before him. 

Those who have read the least of ancient philo- 
sophy will remember that this is no new doctrine. 
It has appeared again and again, whenever deep 
thought has examined into the mysteries of human 
nature. Ask the noblest of the old philosophers 
what they meant by " good," and they would always 
answer with the word " the one ;" something which 
possesses unity : the to ev and t\> ocyaQo'v are iden- 
tical. And so, in the language of Scripture, God, 
the centre of all good, is One. 

Now, what is meant by " unity ?" It is the 
absence of any break, interruption, limit, separation, 
in any object, so as to make two of it. An indivi- 
dual is one man, because he has not two distinct 
minds. A nation is one, if it is not broken up into 
parties and factions. A building is one, if in it 
there is no part which is detached from the rest. 
A poem is one, if all the parts of it can be ranged 
round some common centre, so that none would be 
left out as belonging to a separate subject. It is of 



CH. XVI L.J UNITY THE OBJECT OF DESIRE. 221 

the greatest importance to remember, that unity is 
not a positive, but a negative idea. It is the denial 
of plurality. 

Whatever, therefore, is perfect in all its parts — 
whatever is regular and symmetrical, so that there 
is nothing out of place — whatever is boundless, or 
so vast, or so concealed, that we cannot discern 
any limits to it — whatever is so powerful, that we 
behold nothing more powerful beyond to restrain 
and divide it — whatever is simple, uniform, con- 
stant, permanent, certain, not liable to be affected 
by other things, independent — whatever is true, 
that is. agrees uniformly with some uniform external 
pattern, as a true religious belief with a true reli- 
gious doctrine — whatever seems to possess a spon- 
taneous active power within itself not flowing from 
other things- — whatever, in one word, is not broken, 
mutilated, stained, disfigured, inordinate, extrava- 
gant, distracted, variable, inconsistent, distorted — 
all such objects possess unity ; and because they 
possess unity, attract the desires of mankind. 

It is the " little corner," the angulus ille, which 
now disfigures the farm (denormat), which Horace 
covets, that his farm may then possess regularity 
and unity. It is the " ring-fence," which enhances 
the value of the modern estate. It is the " round 
sum," which the merchant longs to make up before 
he retires from business. It is the perfect charac- 
ter, spotless and without defect, whom a man that 
seeks to marry longs to find, and whom the lover 
believes he has found. He can see no faults ; or 
looks forward to their removal ; or does not con- 
sider them as faults — otherwise his desire vanishes. 
What is it that the philosopher admires in the theo- 
ries of great intellects ? It is unity ; the one simple 
principle, from which all others are made to flow, 
and under which all facts are reducible. What is 
T- 2 



222 UNITY THE OBJECT OF DESIRE. 

the first rule of poetry, but unity, — one action, 
one scene, one division of time, one hero, one con- 
sistent character, one style, one metrical form of 
words ? What is music, but the arrangement of 
sounds, so as to form one unbroken series, with one 
law of rhythm ? What is architecture, but giving 
unity to many stones, many columns, many windows, 
many distinct portions, which yet are united to the 
eye ? What is government, but the work of binding 
men together in one society? What is the desire 
of honour, but the wish that the opinion of others 
respecting us should coincide, be one, with our own ? 
for no man would desire to be honoured more than 
he thought that he deserved. What is war, ambi- 
tion, rivalship, with all the studies and amusements 
which are framed on the principle of contention, and 
the desire of power and victory, but a struggle to 
remove an obstacle, to overpass a limit, to sweep all 
things plain before us, that there may be no check 
or break to the unity of our existence ? Why is 
doubt so painful ? Why do men plunge either into 
Romanism or Infidelity, when they find that the 
Catholic Church does not profess to give them an 
infallible guide in every act of life ? Because they 
cannot bear the distraction, the wavering, the embar- 
rassment of being suspended between two opinions. 
Why are the ocean, the sky, the sun, the desert, the 
night, silence, the crash of thunder, the multitude 
of stars, rest and repose, energy and force, the infant 
and the giant, — all beautiful, all objects which we 
long to contemplate, and contemplate with delight ? 
Because they all possess unity. The sea is shore- 
less, the sky domelike, the sun untainted, the desert 
undisturbed by human foot, the night one sheet 
of darkness, silence unbroken, the thunder-crash 
overpowering the ear and rolling on in continuous 
repeated peals, the stars myriads in number and 



CH. XVII.] UNITY THE OBJECT OE DESIRE. 223 

yet in the sameness of their shining one multitude, 
rest and repose undisturbed, energy and force un- 
movable, the infant formed into an outline flowing 
on in gentle undulation without break or angle, the 
giant solid and massive in its structure and firm as 
a rock : there is unity in all. 

Thus the unity of time is eternity ; unity of space, 
infinity ; unity of goodness, perfect virtue ; unity of 
knowledge, omniscience ; unity of parts, order; unity 
of music, melody, harmony, and rhythm ; unity of 
motion, grace ; unity of figure, proportion ; unity of 
the intellect, truth ; unity of power, omnipotence ; 
unity of taste generally, that which coincides with 
the figure created by our own imagination. Bound- 
lessness and unity are identical : for wherever a 
limit exists, there of necessity the object before us 
becomes two — one on this side of the limit, the 
other on that. And boundlessness is the natural ob- 
ject of human desire. We long to break our chains, 
to defeat our antagonist, to overcome difficulties, to 
gain step after step of knowledge. Nothing satisfies 
us but infinity. Nothing frets us but that which 
opposes limits to our motions and our thoughts. 

Are these hints sufficient to throw you on the far- 
ther examination of the problem, that the universal 
object of human desire (under whatever shape this 
desire may appear) is unity? And to this let it be 
added, that the desire of unity is not excited until 
we have been previously oppressed with a sense of 
plurality. Pain the best moralists recognise as the 
primary spring of desire. Thus, when Plato would 
rouse men to seek after the oneness of truth, he 
began by perplexing them with the inconsistencies 
and oppositions of falsehood. When you have been 
wearied with the imperfections of the world, you 
will delight to take refuge in one where no such 
imperfections exist. You must feel a fault before 



224 UNITY THE OBJECT OF DESIRE. 

you try to amend it ; be conscious of sin before you 
long for holiness ; be thwarted by antagonists before 
you make efforts to overcome them ; be despised 
before you thirst for honour ; sigh over your own 
weakness ere you exercise yourself to gain strength ; 
be pained at the defects of art before you study to 
make it perfect. 

But observe also that this desire of reducing dis- 
order to order, disturbance to peace, doubt to cer- 
tainty, weakness to power, confinement to infinity, 
in one word, of producing unity wherever we look, 
acts in two ways, according to the object which we 
contemplate. You may stand before a picture, com- 
plaining of the harsh contrasts in its colouring, the 
abrupt angularity of its outline, the distraction of 
its parts, the want of consistency in its story ; and 
you may endeavour to rectify these faults, simply 
with the wish of producing a beautiful object, with- 
out any desire of appropriating it to yourself. You 
may sit before the representation of a tragedy, and 
delight in the unity of the plot, in the skill with 
w^hich the author has overcome difficulties, in the 
nice dependence of the several parts, in the eleva- 
tion of the characters, in their internal congruity with 
life, in the oneness of the poetry, decorations, and 
music ; and all this without a thought of self. You 
are thinking of an object wholly out of yourself. 

But, on the other hand, you may think of your- 
self. You may see yourself defective in such a 
quality, embarrassed by such a difficulty, mastered 
by such an opponent ; wanting this field, or that 
book, or that tulip, to fill up some collection of your 
own, which you consider as a part of yourself, and 
by the perfection of which you measure your own 
importance, utility, superiority over others, perhaps 
even your own goodness and virtue. And just as 
you would desire to rectify a defect in a painting, 



C II. XVII.] UNITY THE OBJECT OF DESIRE. 22o 

you would desire to fill up an analogous defect in 
yourself. You would be no less anxious to restore 
unity to your own character, mind, or existence, 
than to preserve it in any other object with which 
you were only concerned as a spectator. 

It is of this latter kind that most of the desires 
of man are composed. They are selfish. They are 
the results of dissatisfaction with our own goodness, 
our own ignorance, our own possessions, our own 
influence. Self is the primary object with most men. 
Hence the principle of appropriation. Each man 
becomes a centre, drawing to himself every thing 
around him ; adding house to house, and field to 
field ; endeavouring to spread his influence, like an 
atmosphere, into infinite space, that nothing may 
oppose his will ; struggling to bend down man and 
nature, and even law and truth itself, into obedience 
to himself: in one word, striving to give unity, and 
infinity, and perfection to his own distracted ham- 
pered, mutilated mind. And does he ever succeed ? 
Can he thus subject to himself the world beyond 
him ? Can he even, when subjected, retain dominion 
over it ? Grant that he could do both ; give him 
omnipotence, give him eternity, give him omnisci- 
ence, make him a God supreme — would man be 
happy ? I answer, No. His life would be misery 
and despair. Man was not made to be God. 

And yet I answer just as boldly, that until he is 
a god, his being is imperfect, and his existence a 
blank. Once more I place before you a paradox, a 
seeming contradiction ; not idly, nor from any wish 
to make ostentatious mysteries, or to provoke cu- 
riosity, or rouse wonder, or attempt originality. But 
man himself is a paradox ; and all truth which regards 
his nature must be a paradox likewise. And it is 
no little gain to learn this — no little advance towards 
humility, and self-distrust, and the reverential recep- 



226 ABSOLUTE UNITY IMPOSSIBLE. 

tion of greater truths from the lips of others, and to 
living in the world with a childlike spirit, willing to 
believe all things and doubting nothing but our- 
selves — it is no little advance to such a spirit (how 
good a spirit I need not say), for us to be fami- 
liarised betimes with the great mysteries of our own 
nature. He who has once observed these, will 
startle at none other in Revelation. 

Why, then, if man could be raised as man to the 
condition of a Supreme Being, by giving him perfect 
unity in all things, would he find in it only misery ? 
In the first place, because it is an essential part of 
his nature that he should, as we before saw, have 
something external to himself on which to rest, to 
act, to contemplate. His mind is like his eye. It 
sees all things except itself. Like every other organ 
of his body, it is made for an outward use and pur- 
pose. And the moment it is turned inward on itself, 
it becomes disordered and pernicious. When you 
are conscious, said an eminent physician, that you 
possess any organ in your body — when it makes itself 
felt by its own internal action — be assured there is 
something wrong in it ; as when a wheel grinds, or 
a spring stops in a machine. The beauty of all ma- 
chinery is, that it should work smoothly, noiselessly, 
as a whole, without attention being drawn to itself ; 
when, in fact, we can trust it to itself, and only de- 
light in seeing the perfection with which it does its 
service. So it is with the mind. Turn it in upon 
itself, and it will devour itself with weariness and vex- 
ation. Hence solitary confinement drives men mad. 

The air through which we see all things is itself 
invisible. The juice which digests all food is itself 
without taste. The mirror which reflects all images 
must have no image in itself. The hand which 
wields all instruments has in itself little power but 
that of holding. The ground on which colours are 



CH. XVII.] UNION WITH PERSONS. 227 

painted must itself be white. Matter, of which the 
world is thought to be made, is itself without shape, 
or bulk, or order, or quantity. And the mind, which 
is to receive and bear the impressions of the universe, 
must, at the time, know nothing of its own move- 
ment or nature.* Till taken out of itself, it cannot 
fulfil its functions. 

But this is not all. If the mind requires out- 
ward objects on which to rest, it also requires that 
they should be of a peculiar nature. They must 
be something really distinct from itself, not its own 
creation — not entirely within its own power — not 
thoroughly known. They must have a principle in 
them of independent agency — they must be living 
persons, not things. Place a man in a desert island 
— cover it with the most beautiful landscapes — fill 
it with the choicest fruits — let all the elements of 
nature be made to minister mechanically to his 
wants — let him see through the whole of it, and 
all that belongs to it, with an unerring eye, — and 
then tell him that here he is to live, in the midst 
of every indulgence that his senses, or fancy, or 
intellect can conceive, to all eternity, but alone 
with no other animated being near him; and the 
man would commit suicide. All the treasures of 
Robinson Crusoe's raft were nothing compared with 
his dog and his parrot ; and these were nothing 
compared with his faithful savage. And even with 
him, he longed for the sight of some civilised face. 
Why ? because as a man he could not live without 
the consciousness that there was with him another 
being, not a part of himself, but an independent 
person, having a movement and spontaneity of its 
own ; and the higher this being was raised in the 
scale of spontaneity — the more independent it was 
of him, the more a mystery beyond his reach — the 
more it satisfied him. Place a man in solitude. 



228 UNION WITH PERSONS. 

He will find out something that has motion, — run- 
ning water, passing clouds, or wavering foliage. So 
long as there is motion not originated by himself, 
he can give himself up to its contemplation with 
something like interest : he is not left to himself. 
Thus, a fire becomes a companion ; an animal, as 
a dog, is even better — it is more independent ; a 
human being still better ; but a servant better than 
a slave, an adult than a child, a wise man than a 
fool, a great man than a weak man, a good man 
than a bad ; because each is more raised above our- 
selves, is more entirely removed from our power, 
has more of spontaneity. Why did the poor pri- 
soner in the dungeon delight in the sight of the 
spider, and shed tears when it died ? Because that 
spider, petty and hideous as it was, was in some 
sense a person to him. It came to him with a will 
of its own. It had a being into which he could not 
penetrate. It was not made by him. Its thoughts, 
and feelings, and affections (for even these he could 
trace in its movements), were a mystery that he 
could not fathom. It excited his interest, kept up 
curiosity, pleased him by fulfilling doubtful antici- 
pations, which, if they had been certain, would not 
have been formed, or have been fulfilled without 
any satisfaction, because there was no previous 
suspense. If it shewed gratitude, the gratitude was 
valued because it was spontaneous ; for what would 
be the worth of gratitude, if we could make it by 
steam? It could be irritated, soothed, pleased, 
taught to imitate, frightened, made to suffer, killed. 
And all these were the signs of an original sponta- 
neous power, wholly external to the poor prisoner 
who established his communion with it. So natural 
is it for man to have something of this kind as- 
sociated with him, that a morbid imagination has 
been known to establish for itself such a communion 



CH. XVIII.] EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW PROVED. 241 

force as from the reluctant confessions of one who 
cannot practise them. No homage to virtue is so 
great as that which is paid by hypocrisy. Nothing 
proves more clearly, that to make men good is the 
gift of God, than the employment of ministers for 
that purpose, who can derive no power from their 
own goodness. 

But I do not see the effects. Men are baptised 
by the Church, and I see sin still struggling with- 
in them ; 'they are still punished as guilty in this 
world ; I discern no trace within them of any nature 
greater than their own. The result belies the pro- 
mise. — This is the common stumbling-block. But 
think for a moment. Are you not mistaking the pro- 
mise ? Nowhere is it made unconditionally. It 
does not say, or dream of saying, that this work 
of perfecting our nature is accomplished fully and 
finally in those who survive it long by the one rite 
of baptism, unless man does his part afterwards, to 
preserve what has there been given. There is a 
struggle still to come ; and in this man is to do his 
part. A physician stands by a sick-bed — he pro- 
mises a dying man that a medicine will cure him, 
and prolong his life for years, if he takes such and 
such precautions against a relapse. The patient 
takes the medicine, forgets the precaution, falls sick 
again, and dies ; and we go away, and pronounce 
that the physician deceived him. I give a man a 
draft upon my banker ; promise him that it will pro- 
cure him such a sum, if he presents it as it is. He 
suffers it to be defaced, the name to be obliterated ; 
and when he presents it, payment is refused. He 
charges me with having imposed on him. I promise 
a drowning man, that if he takes refuge in my boat, 
he will yet be saved. He afterwards falls again into 
the water ; and I am told that my words were false. 

Y 



242 EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW PROVED. 

Is this the reasoning of a rational being, or of a 
heart blinded by some strange delusion ? That bap- 
tised Christians, therefore, do often fail in finally 
securing the promises made to them by the Church, 
is no proof that those promises have not been ori- 
ginally fulfilled. 

But the blessings themselves are things which I 
cannot bring perfectly before me. They are neither 
seen nor felt. I am not conscious of their presence 
in others, nor in myself. I cannot bring them under 
experience. It is easy to make a promise which 
none can charge with non-fulfilment, because none 
can detect whether it is fulfilled or not. It is as if a 
man should pledge himself to turn into a mass of 
silver, not a piece of clay before my eyes, but a 
stone in the centre of the earth where no one can 
penetrate. What should we say of a prophet who 
only prophesied of things which no one could live 
to experience ? If cloven tongues of fire were now 
brought down from heaven, and made to rest upon 
the head of every child brought to the font, we 
should believe. But the case is far otherwise. All 
that is wrought is wrought in secret, and no eye 
can trace it. — And to this I answer, that if you 
claim to trace it by your own eyes — to bring the fact 
under your own individual observation, you must 
first make yourself competent to observe it. When 
I engage by the help of a freezing mixture to change 
water into ice, I do not engage to make it visible to 
a blind man. When I promise to give a poor man 
relief, it is no part of my promise that you, the by- 
stander, should be present and witness the gift. The 
only competent judge whether it is given or not, is 
the person who receives it. Look for it, therefore, 
in your own heart only ; for you have no right to 
decide by reference to any other case. And in this 



CH. XVIII.] EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW TROVED. 243 

you have no right to say that the promise itself has 
failed, until you yourself have fulfilled the conditions 
to which it was attached. 

And what am I to look for ? What are the signs 
of the presence within me of this wondrous and 
mysterious blessing, this new creation, this com- 
munication of God's nature: — Here also you must 
guard against mistake. If you think it is peace, and 
joy. and exalted feeling, and absence of temptation 
to evil, and the consciousness of a new heart, and 
facility in doing good, and a perceptible change of 
taste and temper, you may, perhaps, have reason to 
doubt if any can be detected. And you may as fre- 
quently have rsason to suppose, that the gift pro- 
mised has been vouchsafed and is possessed at the 
very time when it is departed. There is but one 
infallible sign of its presence. When you are able 
to resist yourself — when you are denying your own 
inclinations, restraining the wanderings of your 
fancy, cutting short your desires, fighting against 
temptation, — then be assured there is something 
within you which is not yourself, and which, inas- 
much as it is battling with evil, must have come 
from God. And whenever you recognise this power 
within you as the voice of Him into whose body you 
were brought by baptism, and obey it as His, then 
be assured it is His voice, and He is really and truly 
within you. If you ask why these are infallible 
proofs of this great fact, bringing it under the range 
of your consciousness, just as much as the facts of 
an external world cognisable to the senses by the 
resistance which they offer to you. — I say, first, 
that those who have looked the deepest into human 
nature have never recognised in it any motive or 
propelling principle but pleasure and pain, or rather 
pain only ; for, when pleasure seems to move us, it 
acts through the immediate agencv of desire, and 



244 EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW PROVED. 

desire is preceded by want, and want is attended 
with pain. Now, whenever we are acting with a 
view to relieve ourselves from pain, we are not re- 
sisting ourselves ; there is no self-denial ; the motive 
is, after all, selfish. A very enlightened self-inter- 
est, a very warm and naturally pure heart, a highly 
cultivated reason, might and would bring men to 
perform the most noble acts of virtue, and even 
seemingly of self-devotion. But if, on tracing back 
the feeling, we can reduce it to a desire of personal 
gratification, or the influence of our own selfish 
desire, it ceases to be self-denial, or to exhibit a real 
power of resistance. Probably nearly all the heathen 
virtues, however heroic they seem, v>iere of this kind. 
Men were bartering, as Plato expresses it, 1 pleasure 
for pleasure, pain against pain, acting temperately 
because intemperance was disgusting, dying for 
their country because such a death was honourable, 
indulging liberality because it was an indulgence, 
serving their friends because their friends were a 
part of themselves, cultivating knowledge because 
knowledge was a source of happiness. And in all 
this there was no recognition of a law external to 
themselves, which they were bound and struggled 
to obey even against their will ; while obedience was 
painful, and promised no result, and seemed identical 
with no good. But it is possible for a Christian to 
see that he is surrounded by a number of positive 
commands, hemming him in, and fettering him in 
every movement — to be impelled by warm passions 
to break through them, and yet patiently and re- 
verently, and almost blindly, to submit himself to 
them, without yet being able to taste the pleasure of 
obedience, and without any attempt to calculate the 
good results. This is the elevated principle of vir- 
tue at which Plato aims, and which constitutes true 
1 Phsedo. 



CII. XVIII.] EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW PROVED. 245 

resistance to self. It is real self-denial. Modern 
moralists have been accustomed to regard it as fanci- 
ful and enthusiastic, and even to deny the possibility 
of such actions. But it is evident that there are 
instances in which it does exist. Take the case of a 
mother, to whom the very existence of her child is 
a law, commanding her to sacrifice every thing for 
its good. Take the case of St. Paul, who was willing 
to be anathema for the sake of his brethren. Take 
any one who toils and labours on through a life of 
anxiety in discharge of some positive duty. Ask 
him why he does it, and he will answer, not that 
such sacrifices are good, or expedient, or pleasing, 
or honourable, but that he has before him a law, 
which binds him to obedience ; which he follows 
willingly, so far as that his reason never rebels 
against it ; but it is still a hard and painful labour, 
a mighty struggle, without a thought of self, And 
if it be true that nature has given us no impelling 
principle but pain, and yet men are found to act 
not only without pain, but in the face of it, the 
miracle is assuredly as great as if a river ran back- 
ward to its source, or a stone rose up in the air. It 
is a suspension — it is more than suspension — it is a 
contradiction of the laws of Nature, and proves that 
there is a power working within man higher than 
Nature. 

But secondly, to recognise the obligation of a 
law, we must recognise the existence of a law- 
giver. It is the lawgiver who really is the law. 
Men are not bound to duties by parchment-bonds 
or statute-books, but by the voice and soul which 
speaks in them. And to recognise a lawgiver as a 
Being standing over us with a right to our obedi- 
ence implies a knowledge of his nature ; it implies 
more, an admiration for his nature — some degree of 
affection for it, and consequently an affinity with it. 
Y 2 



246 EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW PROVED. 

" For what man knoweth the things of a man, save 
the spirit of man, which is in him ? even so the 
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of 
God" (1 Cor. ii. 11). Aristotle lays down the prin- 
ciple that we can have no knowledge of any thing 
without possessing within us something like it of 
the same nature. It is certain we never desire any 
thing without possessing some portion of it already. 
Give a man some knowledge, he longs to increase it. 
Make him rich, he becomes avaricious. The more 
righteous he becomes, the more he hungers and 
thirsts after righteousness. Without goodness, with- 
in himself, he cannot interpret or perceive goodness 
in others. "Without measuring endeavours of his 
own, he cannot estimate the exertions of those 
around him. It is, as Plato himself declares, by a 
sort of consanguinity, relationship, <rvyy£m<x., that 
we are attached to all that is good. And those in 
whom this divine nature does not exist are wholly 
incapable of undertaking or seeking for communion 
with, or endeavouring to obey, the divine nature 
which is above them. Hence the love of Christ 
is a proof that Christ is in us. Faith in him is 
an infallible sign that he has already imparted 
himself to us. Acknowledgment of his laws must 
be preceded by an union with his body. " No 
man cometh to God, except the Spirit of God 
draw him." And therefore, when you find that 
you really are able to act no longer by impulse 
or feeling, but by a real independent power, recog- 
nising Christ as your Master, you may rest in this 
as an assurance, that what the Church has pro- 
mised is true ; and that it really has communicated 
to you the Spirit of God, and made you a member 
of Christ's body. 

I will not stop to point out, that thus the proof 
of the fact is wrapt up necessarily in the very con- 



CH. XVIII.] EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW PKOVED. 247 

ditions, without which you have no right to decide 
whether the fact is fulfilled or not. The Church 
bids you make a struggle, and realise in your mind 
the sense of Christ's presence as your Master. Un- 
less you are doing this, you have no right whatever 
to pronounce on the promises of the Church. If 
you are doing this, then you have the proof within 
you, and cannot mistake it. 

But I will rather suggest the consideration of the 
vastness of the power claimed by the Church — a 
power which places it almost on a level with God 
himself, — the power of forgiving sins, by wiping 
them out in baptism — of transferring souls from 
hell to heaven, without admitting a doubt of it, as 
when -'baptised infants," it is said, " dying before they 
commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved," — the 
power of bringing down the Spirit of God from 
heaven, and incorporating it in the persons of frail 
and fleshly man. Think, I say, of this stupendous 
power ; and then ask if any human being could dare 
to assume it without authority from God himself. 
If such authority has never been given, then the 
Church, in every one of its most solemn acts, is 
guilty of the most frightful blasphemy that man 
can conceive. If it has been given, is it not a fear- 
ful thing to make light of or dispute it ? And when, 
in this dull, cold, mechanical age, men say that the 
age of miracles is gone by, that the time is past 
for spiritual gifts, and the deification of men, and 
supernatural communication, and all the dreams, as 
they dare to call them, of the superstitious infancy 
of the world, — remember that even now the Church 
is upon earth claiming every day, and exercising 
the same stupendous power as it exercised in the 
first ages of Christianity. And though the w T orld 
has grown old, and faith is waxing faint, and the 
power of vision is departing, and man's being is 



248 EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW FKOVED. 

sinking down into a dead shell and husk of matter, 
emptied of the glorious spirit which once seemed to 
animate and colour it; still before our eyes there 
is a daily miracle working, and a divine power as 
strong as at its first appearance, and a body per- 
petuating the inheritance of a supernatural gift, and 
a communication open between heaven and earth. 
And those who are sick and wearied with the emp- 
tiness of the natural world may still take refuge 
in a world which is beyond Nature, and before it, 
and above it. 

But you will say, how can such mighty gifts 
be given to such weak and sinful creatures as 
men? That God should form them, guide them, 
lay down laws for their conduct, and teach them 
their duty and end, we can easily conceive. But 
that he should condescend to impart to them his 
own Divine nature, and unite them to himself so 
closely, in preference to all the rest of his spiritual 
creatures, this seems strange and impossible. — And 
yet our Saviour's words cannot easily be evaded : 
" And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given 
them ; that they may be one, even as we are one ; 
I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made 
perfect in one ; and that the world may know that 
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast 
loved me" (John xvii. 22, 23). And before the face 
of a Creator all creatures must be upon the same 
level — all be equally unworthy of mercies which 
must flow from purely spontaneous grace. In beings 
wholly at our disposal, whom we have made and 
can destroy at will, all power is purely derivative ; 
and none, therefore, can take the form of greater 
or less desert. If, indeed, any part of the creation 
might seem to attract more strongly the love of God, 
it would be that which most called for compassion, 
where there was the greatest suffering, and the most 



CII. XVIII.] EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW PROVED. 249 

formidable danger. And this part would seem to 
be the earth. And, as we shall see presently, the 
very abjectness and misery of man may be an essen- 
tial element in the formation of a being made to 
wield great power in a position of derivative au- 
thority. And there is no trace of neglect upon 
earth, as if man and his affairs and interests were 
too little to be noticed by God. On the contrary, 
the whole of Nature is full of the most minute and 
carefully elaborated contrivances for his good, and 
precautions against his ruin. That spot where the 
Son of God came down to preach, and to die, and 
to found a Church, small as it may seem and insig- 
nificant, compared with the infinity of space around 
it, must have been the centre of the universe ; the 
point on which all eyes were fixed, and on which 
the destiny of the universe was decided. And it 
requires no vast stage or amphitheatre to realise 
stupendous acts. The earth may be the mere closet 
of the universe, and yet in that the fate of the uni- 
verse may have been determined. And the tend- 
ency of man's fancy to connect magnitude of space 
and time with the real intrinsic magnitude of events, 
is but a delusion. Three hours are but a drop in the 
ocean of eternity, and a wooden cross but a point 
in the infinity of space ; and yet they were sufficient 
to complete on them the great miracle of man's re- 
demption. It is but little in bulk, says Aristotle 
of the human mind ; but it is of infinite value. A 
vast external fabric is, indeed, appended to it ; but 
as we trace up vitality to its source, we see less and 
less of material dimensions, until at last the mind 
itself retires wholly from the eye, and has neither 
parts, nor figure, nor bulk at all. 

So the whole earth is hung round one impal- 
pable point, the centre of gravitation. So the whole 
universe rolls round some central atom, which, if 



250 EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW PROVED. 

shifted, will derange the whole. So societies are 
gathered round some one individual. So the whole 
fate of man, for hundreds of generations, has turned 
upon the eating of an apple. Space and time have 
no connexion with the real magnitude and import- 
ance of events. None but a sensual eye takes them 
as a measure of value. Saul was higher by the 
shoulders than all the rest of the people ; and David 
was a stripling. Man would choose the one for 
king, and God the other. 

And thus no internal objection is valid against 
the promises of the Church ; and all which is re- 
quired to confirm them is a positive declaration and 
commission from God ; a fact to be proved by his- 
torical testimony only, and traced, like all the other 
doctrines of revelation, from the present up to the 
Catholic Church, from the Catholic Church to the 
body of the Apostles, from the Apostles to Christ, 
and from Christ to God. And the nearer you ap- 
proach to the apostolic age, the more vivid and 
striking is the light in which the mystery of the 
sacraments is placed, the more prominent the ground 
they occupy, the more awful the language in which 
they are described ; as if they were the great trea- 
sure committed to the keeping of the Church ; and 
not merely a metaphysical creed relating to the 
nature of God, nor a code of laws tending to the 
government of man. 



CH. XIX.] OBEDIENCE. 251 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Let us, however, return to the precise nature of 
the miracle wrought in us by baptismal regenera- 
tion, when it is said that we are thereby made mem- 
bers of Christ, and united with God through the 
inspiration of his Holy Spirit. 

Unity was in all things, we found, the essence 
of beauty and goodness. Union with a divine Being 
the highest and truest object of human desire. When 
a man looks upon himself, and discerns a defect in 
his possessions, an obstacle to his wishes, an irre- 
gularity or weakness in his nature, he struggles to 
remove the discordance and limit, and to bring him- 
self to unity of being ; to make himself perfect, in- 
finite in power, in goodness, and in knowledge. And 
when he contemplates another Being, whom he re- 
verences and admires, and discerns any thing ap- 
parently defective — any disobedience to his will, 
any thing at variance with his nature, — upon the 
very same principle he struggles to remove it. 
Hence the efforts of love, and loyalty, and filial 
affection, to place the object of their love at the 
head of all things — to reduce every thing before 
it — to resent and punish every contempt or re- 
bellion, which destroys the unity and perfection of 
the Being whom we delight to contemplate. 

Hence it is, that upon love and faith follows 
necessarily obedience. It is implied in the very act 
of love. Hence, also, in obedience is implied the 
desire that all our thoughts, words, and actions, 
should be shaped and moulded by God, without the 
slightest resistance — that our independent being 



252 OBEDIENCE. 

should be almost absorbed in his, as the spontaneous 
movement of the hand is actuated by the will of the 
mind. I am your servant, your child, your slave, 
your instrument, ready to obey your every com- 
mand, waiting to catch the slightest wish, flying to do 
your commission wherever you send me — this is the 
language of human love, wherever it occurs. Make 
use of me — consider me as your own — my will 
is subject to yours — you are lord, master, queen, 
supreme over all my being. My whole independent 
existence is absorbed in yours ; and my life shall be 
devoted to the work of bringing all others into the 
same subjection. 

Hence, also, zeal for God's glory is the neces- 
sary accompaniment of obedience. There must be 
indignation at the disobedience of others, pain at 
contempt offered to God, resentment against his 
enemies. The first offer of a loyal subject to his 
king is his sword. And when, in the middle ages, 
religion and love became the ruling passions of 
mankind, it took from the same cause the form of 
chivalry. 

And yet, it will readily occur, as soon as perfect 
unity is attained, man's happiness vanishes. Con- 
sider for a moment. Ask why toy after toy, object 
after object, for which man struggles through life, 
is thrown away as valueless the moment it is pos- 
sessed — why man fights with the energy of a giant, 
but when the battle is won sinks down in apathy — 
why the first days of requited affection are happier 
than years that follow — why the ambitious thinks 
nothing of the honour which he has reached, and 
looks only to something higher — why the miser is 
never contented — why knowledge palls — why plea- 
sure satiates — why desire is restless — "why man is 
never blest, but always to be blest?" Content and 
acquiescence with the present seems impossible to 



CH. XVII.] UNION WITH PERSONS. 229 

with a mere plant — to give it, as it were, a soul — to 
learn its movements and changes as a sort of language 
— to love it, as a living thing, and even to die when 
it died. Two children were placed in solitary con- 
finement in Milbank Penitentiary. They each made 
up a sort of figure from the bed-clothes, and were 
found sleeping with it in their arms ! Plato de- 
scribed this essential w r ant of our nature in still 
stronger language. 1 He said, that any individual 
human being w r as by himself only one half of a man, 
of w r hom the other half had been cut off; and that 
his nature could not be perfect till he had found out 
the other half and united himself to it again. And 
so God himself declared that it was not good for 
man to be alone. And he has built society upon 
the conjunction of two human beings, and called 
those two one. 

But this is not all. Consider what is the essen- 
tial element w r hich is required in this external object 
of human affection. It is power — power superior 
to ourselves. Every thing W'hich is subject to us, 
which we can control, explain, see through, bend 
and twist as we like to our own purposes without 
resistance, becomes virtually and essentially a part 
of ourselves, and therefore a thing. It is our pro- 
perty. It loses its independent existence, and w r ith 
it its power of charming us. Pow r er, therefore, 
greater than our own is the object really necessary 
to our existence. We are by nature dependent be- 
ings — parasitical plants, which cannot live without 
some taller tree round which to entwine ourselves. 
Hence all love begins with respect and fear. Hence 
the fascination of force. Hence men " desire a king ;" 
honour a hero ; worship a martyr ; idolise the poet, 
or the orator who carries them aw r ay by his voice ; 

1 Convivium. 
x 



230 MAN NOT MADE FOR INFINITE POWER, 

sit with eyes fixed upon the sight of suffering, when 
suffering is well borne ; flock to see a murderer, or 
witness an execution ; measure greatness of mind 
by greatness of crimes, after the present fashion of 
our nauseous novel-writers ; — any thing for the sight 
of power — a power greater than our own. And 
without this, the life of man were a weary, insipid, 
hopeless, desolate existence. Rather, it could not 
exist at all. No man ever lived — emperor, tyrant, 
pope, sultan, absolute as he may seem, with the 
whole world under his feet — who really stood upon 
the pinnacle of power, with nothing above him to 
support him. Look at every case of seeming abso- 
lute power, and you will trace behind the throne 
a minister, or a friend, or a wife, or a child, or a 
dwarf, or a jester, or a barber, or the public, or a 
priesthood, or a soldiery, or a mistress, before whom 
the master of millions was himself a servant. We 
are born to be slaves : we are fit for nothing else : 
our happiness lies in subjection. No moments are 
so full of true joy, of real greatness, as when a 
nation gives itself up to its sovereign, a wife swears 
obedience to her husband, a saint abandons himself 
to his God. What are the transports of all human 
affection but efforts to debase and enslave ourselves 
before the object whom we love ? 

And therefore it is, that if to-morrow man were 
made the supreme being in the universe, creator 
instead of creature, ruler instead of servant, the 
worshipped from being the worshipper, his condition 
would become a hell. He cannot be God. 

And yet, consider again, to be happy, he must 
be a god. Look once more at that wonderful power 
within him, the power of fancy — that power by 
which that little mind stretches itself out, coil after 
coil, spring beyond spring, — never exhausted, never 
bounded, shooting past all limit of space and time and 



en. xvn.] yet desires it. 231 

number, — creating world upon world, peopling them 
all, still finding in all of them defects, still thirsting 
to remove them — restless, unsatisfied, and miserable, 
without infinity to fill it. For what purpose is this 
gigantic power, thus capable of bearing the universe 
on its shoulders, — of grasping the whole circle of 
things created and things uncreated, possible and 
impossible — of towering up even to the throne of 
the Almighty, and looking down from above it, — to 
what purpose has God placed this enormous power 
within the frail flesh of man, if it is not to be satis- 
fied ? For it cannot be extinguished. You cannot 
tear it out of the mind, as some foul weed, and throw 
it away. You may control, moderate, direct it to 
good objects, stay it for a time. But it is an essen- 
tial part of man's nature ; growing out of the same 
root with his best and noblest affections, working 
with the same springs on which his reason and per- 
ception turn. And for the same reason it is uni- 
versal. Take a beggar from the street, or a child 
from its toy. Ask him what he wishes ; and he 
answers, to have every thing that he likes. He 
conceives a world, and places himself in it as its 
master. His likings may indeed be poor. But so 
far as his view extends, he would obliterate all re- 
sistance to his will, and would be absolute lord and 
monarch of the whole universe which he surveys, 
with the power prospectively of indulging any change 
of inclination that may arise. In one word, he would 
be a god ; and nothing short of this will content 
him. 

Or, take an instance of another kind. Ask a 
doting mother, when hanging over her child, the 
nature of her wishes for that child. Are they short 
of giving to it every good, of making it a god ? 
Is there any particle of imperfection — imperfection 
of body, of heart, of intellect, of power, of gifts, 



232 PRINCIPLE OF LOVE. 

internal and external, which, if her prayers were 
heard, would attach to this object of her affections ? 
Would she not make it a god ? 

It is the wise saying of a sound philosophy, that 
whatever desire Nature has really implanted in the 
heart of man is intended to be fulfilled. And there 
can be no stronger proof of man's ultimate destina- 
tion to some most exalted function in the universe, 
than this unquenchable thirst for infinite perfection 
in all things. But how is it to be realised without 
ending in disappointment and misery ? It is realised 
every day so far as the mere feeling of man is con- 
cerned. Let us look into common life, and see how 
Nature solves this great problem — though the solu- 
tion lasts only for a time — where the affections of 
men are set upon objects of a transient and imagi- 
nary value. It will bring us to an important con- 
clusion. 

First, then, Nature never does solve it when the 
desires of men are set originally on making them- 
selves gods. No man ever yet reached even for a 
moment the height of satisfaction, when his object 
was to procure for himself infinite wealth, or infinite 
power, or infinite knowledge, or infinite pleasure, 
or infinite honour, or even infinite goodness. The 
self before his eyes mars every thing, and nothing 
but a perpetual fever and perpetual disappointment 
await him. His life is indeed that of Tantalus. 

But take a man out of himself. Set before him 
a being whom he honours and admires, whom his 
imagination will therefore picture as perfect — as 
divine (it is the common language of love). Let it 
be a sovereign of loyal subjects — a philosopher whom 
the student idolises as an oracle of wisdom — a saint 
whom superstition has surrounded with a halo of 
supernatural glory — a woman whom a lover's fancy 
has invested with the name as well as attributes of 



CH. XVII.] PRINCIPLE OF LOVE. 233 

divinity ; let the whole being and affection of the 
worshipper be absorbed in the reverent contempla- 
tion of this perfect object, and you will recognise at 
once, even in the fondest excess of such a reverence, 
a germ and principle of goodness and of happiness, 
which wants only one other condition to make it 
perfect. See what a change is made in the frame 
and temper of the whole man, the instant he is taken 
out of himself by the presence of a noble object on 
which his admiration rests : 

" Love lives not alone, immured in the brain : 
But, with the motion of all elements, 
Courses as swift as thought in every power, 
And gives to every power a double power, 
Above their functions and their offices : 
It adds a precious seeing to the eye— 
A lover's eye will gaze an eagle blind ; 
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound, 
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd ; 
Love's feeling is more soft and sensible 
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails ; 
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste ; 
For valour, is not love a Hercules, 
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides ? 
Subtle as spinx ; as sweet and musical 
As bright Apollo's lute strung with his hair ; 
And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods 
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony." 

Love's Labour's lost y act iv. sc. 3. 

What may be the real nature of the object which he 
believes thus perfect, matters little, so long as he 
believes it perfect. It throws him into an attitude 
of reverence ; and then the brightness of the object 
falls upon himself, pervades every portion of his 
nature, and transmutes him, rouses him into a new 
being. 

But something is still wanting. The thought of 
self sooner or later must intrude. The eye must 
turn at times from the heavens to the earth — from 
x 2 



234 PRINCIPLE OF LOVE. 

the palace in which the being whom we honour 
dwells, to the hovel in which we are dwelling our- 
selves — from the glorious character, which we de- 
light in contemplating, to our own ignorance, or 
meanness, or guilt. Self-consciousness, sooner or 
later, will force its way ; and will become more bit- 
ter from the contrast of the spectacles. How is it 
to be alleviated ? I answer, Nature points out. She 
makes us stretch out our hands to the being whom 
we reverence ; throw ourselves at his feet, humble 
ourselves in his presence, busy ourselves in his ser- 
vice, in bringing him gifts, studying his will, watch- 
ing every movement of his eye ; and all this with 
one hope and longing, that he may look down upon 
us, and recognise us as something which he values, 
as a part of himself. And when he does thus re- 
cognise us, then it is that we can draw off to our- 
selves the whole perfection of his nature, without 
diminishing or altering it. We become, as Plato 
says, wise by his wisdom, good by his goodness, 
great by his power, holy by his holiness, honoured 
by his honour, happy by his happiness, glorious by 
his glory, divine by his divinity. Once feel that 
he loves us, and all that he possesses immediately 
becomes ours. We are taken into his nature, at- 
tached to him as a hand to the body, become his. 
For it is not, remember, — and the distinction is 
vital, — it is not a struggle to make him ours, to 
obtain possession of him, that he may be a part of 
ourselves ; for then we should destroy that very su- 
periority and independence, and spontaneity, which 
is the object that we admire. Wherever love takes 
this form, it is not love, but some baser passion — 
selfish and adulterated. Ileal love seeks not to 
aggrandise itself, but the being whom it loves. It 
elevates him in every way : delights in his honour, 
thanks him for his glory, rejoices in denying itself, 



CH. XVI1.J PRINCIPLE OF LOVE. 235 

would make the whole world bow down before him, 
and bow down itself the first, thinking no office 
mean, and proud even of its own humiliation. It is 
to be 

" All made of faith and service ; 
All made of passion ; 
All adoration, duty, and observance, 
All humbleness, all patience, and impatience, 
All purity, all trial, all obeisance." 

As You like It, act v. s. 2. 

And therefore the school moralists, who, before 
this, have made the happiness of man consist in pos- 
sessing God, have erred in an essential point. It 
consists, rather, in being possessed by God — in being 
made a part of himself. And the religion which 
takes not this form, however deep and true its ear- 
nestness for union with God, will end ultimately in 
fanaticism and irreverence. 

But make one more distinction. Remember the 
contrast between a state of desire and a state of pos- 
session. Compare the anxious, doubtful, feverish, 
fretful, disappointed temper which accompanies the 
struggle to attain an object, and the rejoiced, satis- 
fied, manly, contented, tranquil frame of mind of 
him who possesses it already, — and which shall we 
choose ? Place before us an Infinite Being, infinite 
in all perfections, possessing therefore the highest 
unity. Let our whole heart be attracted by admi- 
ration of him, Let the thought of our own want of 
unity then rise up — of our weakness, that is, and 
sins, and ignorance, and dangers, — then let the eye 
turn up again, longing that a look may be cast down 
from that height of heights, to irradiate our own 
darkness, elevate our own meanness, purify our own 
pollution, ennoble our own corrupt nature, by re- 
cognising it as a part and parcel of a nature which 
is perfect. Will this be the extent of our wishes ? 



236 PRINCIPLE OF LOVE. 

Or could we imagine something still beyond — that 
when the self-distrusting, remorseful mind was thus 
harassed and ashamed, and full of desire, something 
there might be to declare, that what he longed for 
was given him already — that the look had been cast 
down on him from his birth — that he had been already 
recognised as a portion of this all-perfect and all- 
divine Being ; admitted individually into his favour, 
united to his affection, made a member of his body ? 
Look into the human heart in all those moments — 
few, indeed, but never to be forgotten — moments of 
its purest joy and noblest energies, when man learns 
for the first time that he is loved and honoured by 
the Being whom he has loved and honoured him- 
self — and compare this with the days that preceded 
it ; and then you may see the value of that rite of the 
Catholic Church, which seals and ensures to every 
baptised Christian, by an outward sign, confirmed 
by the testimony of his senses, and of which he can- 
not doubt, the gift, from his earliest infancy, of that 
Holy Spirit of God — one, and perfect, and infinite, 
and eternal — by which he is united to God himself, 
as a limb is united to the body, and is made a " mem- 
ber of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the 
kingdom of heaven." Is it better, more adapted to 
his happiness and goodness, more like a dispensation 
of perfect love, that this gift should be vouchsafed 
him from the beginning, that he may look back 
from day to day, with joy and gratitude, on the cer- 
tainty of possessing it ; or that it should be held be- 
fore his eyes to torture him, through a weary life, 
with a pursuit, in which each step must be a failure, 
and every failure full of despair. 

" For Baptism is not only a sign of profession, 
and mark of difference, whereby Christian men 
are discerned from others that be not christened ; 
but it is also a sign of regeneration or new birth, 



CH. XVII.] PRINCIPLE OF LOVE. 237 

whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive 
baptism rightly are grafted into the Church ; the 
promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption 
to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are 
visibly signed and sealed ; faith is confirmed, and 
grace increased by virtue of prayers unto God. 
And the baptism of young children is in any wise 
to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable 
with the institution of Christ.'* 1 

1 Article xxvii. 



238 EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW PBOVED. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

But you will say (at least if you have been brought 
up under the miserable influence of this unbelieving 
age), all this is only the profession of the Church. 
True (for my own consciousness declares it), that I 
bear within me an evil power which enthrals me, 
and which must be laid prostrate and killed, before 
I can escape into freedom. True also, that I am 
bowed down and humbled by a sense of shame and 
ill-desert in the presence of an all-pure Being, and 
I must be cleansed before I can look up. True 
also, that my whole nature is tormented with doubt, 
and imperfection, and distraction, and can only be 
appeased and satisfied by absorption into the being 
of one who shall be in himself truth, goodness, light, 
and holiness, and shall communicate them to me 
by an effluence from his own perfection. And in 
discerning all these wants, and devising what is ne- 
cessary to supply them, the Church may indeed be 
embodying profound philosophy— profo under than 
any which ever appeared before it. But I want a 
proof that its promises are true — that the whole is 
not a delusion. Where is the evidence that the power 
of evil within me really is destroyed — that my sins 
really are forgiven — that God really is imparted to 
me by the waters of baptism ? 

To give this proof does not belong properly 
to the ethical teacher. It is rather the business 
of the theologian, or perhaps of ecclesiastical his- 
tory. And there was a time, when to require it, 
would prove a mind unworthy of receiving it. 



CH. XVIII.] EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW PROVED. 230 

When the Church, as it once did, stood before men 
in its full stature, bearing upon it all the features 
and insignia of a divinely constituted power and 
ambassador of God, and acknowledged as such by 
all that w r as wise and great among men ; to dispute 
her word was the mark of a presuming and rebel- 
lious spirit, and deserved little more than chastise- 
ment. But in these present days, her power hum- 
bled, her body mutilated, her voice struck dumb, 
her history unknown, her noblest faculties torpid 
with disuse, her name a byword among the na- 
tions, we may well pardon the man who asks for 
some proof of her assertions. Doubt is no longer a 
self-evident offence against humility and trustful- 
ness. It is to be pitied more than punished. And 
until the Church once more has put forth her 
strength, arrayed herself in her real attributes of 
power, and made her claims known and felt through- 
out the world, she has no right whatever to complain 
of those who look upon her suspiciously, or even 
with alarm. And therefore I will stop to say a few 
words in answer to the question, If the promises of 
the Church are realised. 

Remember, then, the only logical and philo- 
sophical mode of proceeding, when such a doubt 
arises. Do not begin with asking the grounds for 
believing. Whatever you are told, you have a rea- 
son to believe, until something occurs which should 
make you distrust it. And this is your real question : 
What reason have I for doubting ? Is it that such 
mighty blessings cannot be conveyed through a 
little simple form ? But we have seen that the 
simplest form, the merest trifle, when established by 
competent authority, may become the instrument of 
incalculable power. Is it that man is too unworthy 
to be the channel of a divine inspiration ? But 
God does communicate with man daily and hourly. 



240 EFFICACY OF BAPTISM, HOW PEOVED. 

All knowledge, all life, all goodness, all power, all 
association with himself, all participation in his bles- 
sings, must come to us ultimately from God. But 
immediately they do not come. No man hath either 
seen or heard him. They come to us through man. 
Man is the appointed mediator. Our parents give 
us life, our teachers knowledge, our education good- 
ness, our government power, our Church commu- 
nion with God. But in all it is man, or rather God 
through the form of man, who takes us, and brings 
us to the presence of God, and brings down the 
light of heaven to our eyes and hearts. Therefore, 
that in this greatest work of all, the work of impart- 
ing to us freedom, and forgiveness, and membership 
with God — that in this, also, man should be the 
agent, and God should not appear directly, is not a 
strange event, but one in closest analogy with the 
whole system of our experience. But can this Divine 
Spirit be communicated through the hands of evil 
men ? Good men may have the power ; but can 
it belong to an evil man, simply because he is com- 
misioned to be a minister of the Church ? Look 
again at the system of Nature, and see if the sins of 
men render them incapable of acting as channels 
of the divine blessing. Where is the man without 
sin ? And yet God does employ them under Nature, 
as well as under the Gospel, to proclaim his truth, 
to make known his will, to bring men to himself ? 
he does raise them up to speak forth words which are 
the inspiration of his Spirit, because they are good 
and true, and all goodness and all truth can come 
from none but him, and to put those words, and 
therefore that Spirit, into the hearts of others, not- 
withstanding their own hearts are corrupt. The 
weakness and unworthiness of the channel through 
which this Spirit is conveyed even commends and 
enforces it : no lessons of goodness come with such 



CII. XIX.] PRESERVATION OF INDIVIDUALITY. 253 

man. And hence human reason, looking forward to 
the promised happiness of eternity, has been com- 
pelled to conceive of it, though by a contradiction 
unintelligible and inexplicable, as of an infinite series 
of progressions in goodness and knowledge, through 
a never-ending series of ascending states of being. 
How to make man contented, is the first problem of 
philosophy. Observe the conditions necessary to 
solve it. He must have constantly a want to be 
supplied, an evil to be removed, an advance to be 
made. And this want and evil must be deeply felt ; 
and there must be great difficulty in producing the 
unity desired, or there will be little satisfaction at- 
tending success. And this must be renewed from 
day to day, as Paley proposes to produce happiness, 
by the continual creation of new wants, and the 
satisfaction of them by new successes. And this 
cannot be carried on through all eternity without 
coming to some end. And it is also impossible to 
be reconciled with the consciousness of perfect hap- 
piness — of possessing all that we desire. Infinite 
desire and infinite possession, how are they com- 
patible ? 

And yet Christianity has accomplished even this. 
It places man by nature in the lowest imaginable 
condition ; for no degradation can be greater than 
that of a moral agent bound down by sin. It makes 
him helpless, ignorant, impotent, and hopeless ; but 
with an insatiable craving for boundless power, 
knowledge, and goodness. It then unites him to a 
Being possessing all these perfections ; but, remem- 
ber, without destroying man's own individuality. The 
Oriental philosophy, as well as Christianity, speaks 
of the union of man with God as the highest end 
and good. But it describes man's life as absorbed 
and lost in the Deity, so that consciousness no longer 
survives. It is, to use their ordinary language, as 
z 



254 PRESEEVATION OF INDIVIDUALITY. 

if a bottle of water were broken, and the water min- 
gled with the river ; as if a ray of light flowed back 
into the sun, and were lost in it, so as never to be 
separated again. But Christianity preserves the in- 
dividuality of man, by retaining his own nature, and 
the recollection of its corruption and misery ; and 
yet combines it with God so closely, as to produce 
the most perfect union which man can conceive ; 
and which it typifies by the marriage- state, by that 
bond of connexion which makes woman "bone of 
man's bone, and flesh of his flesh." If the union 
were less complete, man's desire of approximation 
to the Being whom he loves would not be satisfied. 
If it were more, the weakness of man would be lost 
in the greatness of God, and the greatness of God 
would cease to be an object of infinite admiration ; 
and with the loss of this, man's happiness would 
cease also ; or rather his consciousness would cease ; 
for consciousness cannot exist without the percep- 
tion of two things — of ourselves, and of something 
without us. When I speak of myself, I feel and 
express a distinction between myself and something 
which is not myself. When I speak of other things, 
I feel also that I have an existence besides and be- 
yond them. And consciousness becomes happiness, 
when it passes from the contemplation of an imper- 
fect object to one that is perfect ; it is keen enjoy- 
ment when difficulty, doubt, or danger, have stood 
in the way, and yet are removed. It is enhanced by 
the degree of imperfection, when the perfection is 
in proportion ; when, for instance, infinite misery is 
followed by infinite happiness. Evil, therefore, is a 
necessary element in it. The sense of this may be 
kept up by the constant recollection of past misery, 
and of present helplessness if left to ourselves. And 
yet it may be constantly balanced by the sense of cer- 
tain present good — good which covers all the suffer- 



CH. XIX. J PRESERVATION OF INDIVIDUALITY. 255 

ing of the past, and removes all disquietude for the 
future. xVnd thus it is possible to conceive how 
man, under the dispensation of Christ, may be happy 
to all eternity, with a perpetual thirst and yet per- 
petual satisfaction ; happy as an individual person, 
and yet completely bound up and dependent on an- 
other Being ; still looking back without weariness, 
and forward without impatience ; contemplating 
God in himself, and himself in God ; feeling that he 
is man, and yet also that he is divine ; standing close 
on the throne of heaven, yet never forgetting his 
own infinite nothingness ; exercising almighty power 
with the most unfeigned humility ; and traversing 
from hour to hour, with a never-wearied eye, the 
distance between himself and his Maker, without 
any dissatisfaction or any satiety. 

But to preserve this distinction, let us remember, 
self-abasement, shame, consciousness of sin, the sense 
of entire helplessness, and absolute dependence upon 
God, are necessary. No man can be exalted, with- 
out being previously humbled. All the Christian 
doctrines which speak of man's natural corruption, 
of the grievousness of sin, of the wrath of God, of 
the atonement, of judgment, of punishment, of justi- 
fication only through the merits of our Lord, — all 
bear upon this point, and interpose between man 
and God to prevent the presumption which might 
follow on the counterbalancing doctrines of the sacra- 
ments. And thus here also, as so often before, let 
us observe that the law of perfection consists in 
holding two things together, distinct without being 
divided ; in reconciling plurality with unity. The 
Oriental philosophy holds unity without plurality. 
It would merge the individual man in the abyss 
of God's nature, and destroy his separate exist- 
ence. The common religions of the world keep 
men ajiart from God by sin and shame, and cannot 



256 TEINITY IN MAN. 

comprehend the union. They err by maintaining 
plurality. The Catholic doctrine asserts both the 
union of man with God, and the preservation of 
man's individuality. It neither confounds nor di- 
vides. It does not profess to explain ; but it boldly 
asserts the fact, and provides for its accomplishment 
in a way which human reason could not have de- 
vised, and which none but divine power could have 
realised. 

And, once more, observe how it embodies in the 
person of every baptised Christian a mystery fully 
as inexplicable as that which is laid as the founda- 
tion of Catholic doctrine, and from which the ra- 
tionalist turns with ignorant contempt. 

Every individual Christian (perhaps it may be 
said that every man in the workings of his intellect) 
realises in his own mind the fact of a Trinity in 
Unity, and an Unity in Trinity. Perhaps it is in 
this sense chiefly, that he is said to have been created 
in the image of God. In every act of Christian con- 
sciousness — consciousness, that is, of his relation 
to God in Christ — -there is within him a thinking 
power or person, which he calls himself. But this 
thinking power, in order to think at all*, must be 
contemplating something. He is contemplating, first, 
himself in his own natural state of want, misery, and 
helplessness. From this he passes on to contem- 
plate the same self, as he is in God. Here are three 
distinct persons, as distinct as can be imagined ; 
and the very act of thinking implies that they are 
so ; since an object to be contemplated must be dis- 
tinct from the faculty which contemplates it ; and 
a relation, to be perceived, must exist between two 
distinct things ; as, for instance, between myself in my 
natural, and myself in my Christianised, condition. 
I must regard the two as separate from each other, 
otherwise no relation is discoverable between them. 



CH. XIX.] TRINITY IN MAN. 257 

And yet these three are one. The I who contem- 
plate, am the same with the I who am contem- 
plated — the natural man is one with the Chris- 
tianised man. If they were not one and the same, 
there would be no satisfaction in tracing the rela- 
tion between them. And the very subject of con- 
templation is the union of these three distinct pep- 
sons. " I live," says St. Paul; "yet not I, but Christ 
liveth in me" (Gal. ii. 20). 

This deep mystery in the constitution of the 
human mind has engaged the attention of many 
modern philosophers, who have examined the theory 
of consciousness, especially in Germany. It is not 
to be used as a confirmation, or illustration, or ex- 
planation of the great and solemn mystery of Chris- 
tianity : for who would dare to draw analogies be- 
tween the essential nature of God and the finite 
mind of man ? Let me most anxiously guard against 
any such abuse. But it is a satisfactory rebuke to 
those who would deny the Christian mystery, as if 
it were contrary to reason. If it be so, then man's 
existence is also contrary to reason ; for a mystery 
equally unintelligible to us, yet palpably a fact, is 
involved in every act of consciousness. It occurs 
also, where we should expect to find it, in the me- 
taphysical speculations of Aristotle, and is also un- 
doubtedly hinted at in Plato. Aristotle expressly 
says, that in every act of thought " the mind which 
contemplates, and the object contemplated," the to 
vovv and to voovfAsvov, are the same. They both co- 
exist in one and the same subject, as the convex 
and concave form are united in one and the same line. 
And in his theory of friendship, which he would make 
essential to human happiness, if not its highest good, 
he -states that to form a perfect friendship, three con- 
ditions are required — two distinct persons, to reci- 
procate the affection ; and yet in these distinct per- 
z2 



258 JUSTIFICATION, 

sons the greatest possible equality, similarity, and 
communion, io-orri^ 6{j.oi6tyi<;, and koivo'tws. 1 They 
must be separate, and yet one. And he traces, as 
we have traced, the delight of friendship and love 
to the act by which the mind contemplates the ob- 
ject which it loves, as distinct from itself, and yet 
as united to itself — as a second self. 

There is another observation to be made respect- 
ing this catholic doctrine of the union of man with 
God through the sacraments of the Church. 

When the Church declares that baptism cleanses 
from the stain of sin, and makes us at that moment 
pure and acceptable, justified and righteous in the 
sight of God, we might very justly be content with 
its proving that God himself had sanctioned such a 
declaration, and not require to know the way in 
which the work of justification was accomplished. 
But when this question is asked, it is answered by 
the same fact of our being by baptism united to 
Christ. We have seen how man's sense of his own 
weakness, misery, and imperfection, is soothed at 
once by his union with a Being of infinite perfec- 
tion ; how there is a power in goodness, as in evil, 
to flow over beyond itself, and cover every thing 
which is brought into a certain contact with it. 
When the woman touched the hem of our Saviour's 
garment, the healing influence with an electrical ra- 
pidity passed into her diseased frame. It is like the 
widow's cruise of oil. Bring all the vessels that can 
be procured, it will fill them all. Set down thou- 
sands of famished men, place them in communica- 
tion with the Apostles, and the Apostles with our 
Lord, and the five loaves will feed them all. It is 
a law not of Christianity only, but of Nature. The 
organisation of the world, in all its parts, is carried 
on upon the principle of gathering vast masses of 
1 Ethics, lib. 8. 



CH. XIX.] JUSTIFICATION. 259 

useless, worthless matter round some one central 
point, in which all power and virtue resides, and 
from which this power proceeds, permeating and 
holding together every particle, and forming by its 
own mysterious inspiration and communication (a 
communication which the eye cannot trace, nor the 
reason understand), one vast, beautiful, and noble 
whole out of a concrete of paltry atoms. Where 
resides the life of the tree ? Not in the leaves, not 
in the branches, not in the fruit ; for strip them from 
the trunk, and their vitality is lost. Where is the 
life of the human frame ? Not in the hand, the 
foot, the eye, or the ear ; for amputate them, and 
they putrefy. That there is a vital principle some- 
where, of some kind, from which all the animal 
movements of the frame are propagated, we all know. 
But the material atoms which it holds together 
change and evaporate every seven years. Still the 
vital principle continues. But what, and where it 
is, we cannot tell ; we only trace it and describe it 
by its effects. So also human reason. Think of the 
vast amount of facts and ideas collected and thrown 
into order, and incorporated in a mind of powerful 
intellect, and constituting its wisdom and excellence. 
Detach these facts from his thinking principle, dis- 
solve their systematic connexion, and they crumble 
into a chaos of unintelligible sensations. Whence, 
then, is their value ? It is derived from some myste- 
rious power in the mind ; a power wholly distinct from 
the ideas on which it operates, but which possesses in 
itself the principle of unity, and imparts that unity to 
the rest. All the facts of my life are thus held toge- 
ther, and make up one man — are reduced into personal 
identity, by my perceiving within myself that I, who 
lived twenty years back, and have passed through a 
multitude of changes, yet have continued the same 
man throughout. All the scattered phenomena of a 



260 JUSTIFICATION. 

science, as of chemistry or botany, are thus thrown 
into unity and order by the unific power of the mind 
itself. It is as if a petrifying stream took up in its 
course twigs, and pebbles, and insects, and clay, and 
hardened them into one concrete. Or as the neo- 
Platonic philosophers delight to illustrate it, it is 
like a ray emanating from the sun, throwing itself 
out into infinite space, traversing infinite varieties 
of atmosphere, and yet never losing its unity, and 
continuing all along one stream of light. So, if we 
may trust opticians, light is itself a sea of fluid, 
spread out in infinite space, but lying in darkness, 
until some impulse from a central sun throws it into 
waves and undulations, and then the whole universe 
becomes clothed with glory. So human society is 
a chaos of rude and worthless individuals, until some 
one mighty spirit has diffused its own wisdom and 
energy through the mass, and it becomes a nation. 
So families are held together by the life-blood of 
their original parent. So the whole universe of 
things is supported by the breath of its Creator. 
And so the Church of Christ, sick, and impotent, 
and unclean, as it is in itself, is made whole, and 
strong, and holy, by the presence of Christ within 
it. Every where there is body and soul ; but the 
body is sanctified by the soul — the body many, the 
soul one — the body evil, the soul good — the body 
palpable to sense, the soul invisible — the body obe- 
dient, the soul ruling — the body earthly, the soul 
divine, and made divine by the presence in it of 
God. The evil is merged in the good, and the eye 
does not see it. The dark spot is swallowed up in 
the diffusion of light. The past is forgotten in the 
present. The sin of one part is covered by the vir- 
tue of another part. One sense is defective, but 
there is a higher to supply its place. Once esta- 
blish an union between men — shew that they are 



CII. XIX.] JUSTIFICATION. 261 

brothers, or children, or fellow-subjects, or friends, 
or even companions, and the merits of one instantly 
extend to all the rest. Thus a loyal father obtains 
the pardon of his rebellious children. The kindness 
of to-day covers the neglect of yesterday. A worth- 
less family are honoured for the memory of their 
ancestors. A whole city is saved from ruin because 
one of its inhabitants is in favour with its con- 
querors. No fact is more common. But in all 
cases the union must be shewn. It is only as united 
in one and the same whole, that one part of a body 
can thus preserve the other — that this transfusion 
of merit and goodness can thus take place. The 
vessels to be filled with oil were brought into the 
widow's house, " and the doors were shut upon 
them." The poor woman touched the hem of Christ's 
garment before she was healed. And man's soul 
must be united to Christ, before, in the sight of God, 
its sinfulness is lost in the purity of Christ. For 
justification is no legal fiction, no mere change of 
moral feeling in the Creator, without any corre- 
sponding change in the creature : for once suppose 
that moral feelings can thus vary independently of 
their object, so as to call good evil, and evil good, 
and where is the immutability of God's nature, and 
the foundation of all our morality ? But by the 
sacrament of baptism our body is taken into the 
body of Christ ; we are made " members of Christ," 
and by this union are admitted to all the goodness, 
and power, the favour of God, and the hopes of 
immortality which are concentrated in the person of 
our Lord. In the same manner, it is said in the 
Epistles, that by baptism we are " crucified with 
Christ," " buried in Christ," "raised with him," 
" quickened with him," " made to sit with him in 
heavenly places." We are united to his body, and 
thus are made partakers of his whole nature. 



262 MODE OF RESISTING EVIL. 

By the same fact is to be interpreted the lan- 
guage of the Church respecting the " death unto 
sin," which is typified by immersion in the water. 
We share in the victory achieved by Christ over the 
enemy of our souls. To us that enemy is already 
dead, and will continue dead so long as we main- 
tain our union with Christ. Lose that, neglect the 
means which he has appointed for continuing it by 
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper — let our faith 
or adherence to him wax cold — and this privilege 
we lose ; and the power of sin revives. And upon 
this is founded a practical rule of Ethics of the 
greatest importance. When that evil nature within 
us, which is not extirpated, but only left dead at 
baptism, and capable of revival, begins to stir within 
us again, it is natural that our attention should be 
drawn to it, and that we should prepare ourselves 
for a struggle against it. We are placed, as I said 
before, over a mortally wounded enemy, and all our 
efforts are to be directed to prevent him from reco- 
vering himself. And it is hard to see and feel that 
the proper mode of doing this is to think not of 
him, but of another. But it is not we who destroyed, 
and can still subdue, the Evil One, but another 
Being, in whom only we have any power. Our 
business is not so much to commence a battle with 
the devil, but to adhere stedfastly to our Saviour, 
who will fight the battle for us. 

There is a man drowning in the water. You 
long to save him. You join hands with others, and 
form a line ; and the farthest person will then be 
able to reach him. This farthest person will do it 
all. But the poor drowner struggles violently. You 
are impatient to save him, break hands, the chain is 
dissolved, the power gone, and the man perishes. 
They are pulling you up from the bottom of a well. 
You are frightened lest you fall, make an effort to 



CH. XIX. J MODE OF RESISTING EVIL. 263 

clamber up yourself, let go the rope, and are lost. 
You are in a boat in a storm, and know nothing of 
its management ; the sailor bids you do nothing but 
hold the helm steadily in one position, and he will 
take care of the rest. A huge wave is coming, you 
try to steer the boat from it, the wave bursts in, 
and the boat goes to the bottom. 

Remember, in one word, that you yourself can 
do nothing. It is not you who have destroyed the 
evil power, nor can prevent it from reviving : it is 
Christ. Your business and struggle must be to re- 
tain your communion with Him, and He will do all 
for you. And therefore, when temptation comes, 
and the imagination is leading you astray, and evil 
pleasures are stirring in your body, do not think so 
much of evil thoughts and sinful desires — even of 
expelling and mortifying them — as of strengthen- 
ing and multiplying the good. More frequent com- 
munion, more earnest prayer, more constant asso- 
ciation with good men, and study of good books, is 
our greatest wisdom, when tempted to evil ; think- 
ing of the evil itself will only give it strength. 
When bad thoughts intrude, you may indeed at- 
tempt to repel them ; but the only mode of repelling 
them is by substituting others in their place. They 
may retire for a time, at our bidding ; but if we 
leave the house empty, they will find it an easy 
matter to return to it again. Fill it with good 
thoughts, and they cannot obtain an entrance. And 
the good thoughts which only will be able to resist 
them, are thoughts of Christ, an abiding sense of 
our union with Him, of our dependence on Him, of 
His entire perfection, of His power and will to do all 
things for us, while we can do nothing for ourselves. 
If all the blessings of Baptism are ensured to us by 
its uniting us to Him, and if our sense of this union 
with Him is but another word for faith, and when 



264 MODE OF RESISTING EVIL. 

faith vanishes, the union vanishes also, — it is evi- 
dent that any acts, or thoughts, or struggles, which 
do not tend to preserve this faith and this union, 
will be valueless. One man will endeavour to escape 
from an evil thought by engaging in study — another 
by plunging into society — another by some appa- 
rently innocent amusement — another by indulging 
his taste in the creation of beauty ; and all these 
seem good to us, compared with the evil from which 
we are flying : they serve as a temporary refuge. 
But let us ask our own hearts, if they are more than 
temporary. They bring us no nearer to the real end 
of our journey. The waves are gathering round us, 
and no escape is offered but in one vessel. We seat 
ourselves in another, and do not discover, till too 
late, that it is too weak to bear us. 

And, further, it may be observed, that as sin 
comes to us with a variety of temptations, the Chris- 
tian faith has also a variety of resisting facts, each 
for each ; and to control our imagination aright, we 
must have them sorted, as it were, and adapted to the 
several cases of temptation. Much of our ethical 
education depends on this right distribution ; and 
our minds should be so practised in it, that every 
bad thought which occurs should, by a natural as- 
sociation, draw up immediately its corresponding 
antagonist of good. Study St. Paul's Epistles, and 
observe how admirably this is contrived — how the 
two armies, as it were, of thoughts, are brought out 
in battle-array, and each matched severally against 
each. When servants would disobey their masters, 
they are reminded that they themselves are servants 
of Christ ; harsh masters are told that they have a 
Master in heaven; husbands, that the marriage -union 
is a type of Christ's union with the Church ; the un- 
clean, that their bodies are the temple of the Holy 
Spirit; deceivers of their brethren, that they are 



CH. XIX.] MODE OF RESISTING EVIL. 20,3 

members of each other; men who make divisions, 
that the Church is one body ; if given to vain ques- 
tions, that there is one sound doctrine ; if unmerci- 
ful, that they have been forgiven for Christ's sake ; 
if presumptuous, that they are justified in Christ, 
and not of themselves ; if despairing, that Christ is 
within them ; if minding earthly things, thet they 
have their conversation, or polity, in heaven. A 
careful reader would do well to study this arrange- 
ment of antitheses ; and they will supply him with 
the best and only mode of keeping good thoughts 
ready at hand to come into his mind and take their 
stand against the ingress of those that are evil — true 
against false — Christian against worldly — spiritual 
against fleshly. 



AA 



266 BAPTISM A COVENANT. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Such, then, is the new position in which the Church 
places man by the rite of Baptism. It begins where 
all heathen education ended ; it realises what philo- 
sophy only imagined and desired ; and commences 
a new creation of moral beings (xcav\j xt*<tk, in the 
words of St. Paul), just as the moving of the Spirit 
of God upon the waters of chaos called forth a new 
earth into light. And a system of professedly Chris- 
tian education, which does not constantly bear in 
mind this distinction, and frame itself upon the pri- 
vileges of baptism, as on its fundamental fact, can 
only end in confusion and mischief. What should 
we say to a moralist, who should lay down the same 
rules of liberality for a man who was poor and la- 
bouring for his bread, and for one whose wealth was 
acquired? When a man is struggling in the water, 
we advise him to stretch out his arms and swim; 
but we do not persevere in the advice after he has 
reached the shore. When he is struggling with his 
enemy, his movements are of one kind ; but they 
must be very materially altered when the enemy lies 
prostrate on the ground. And it is because all mo- 
dern systems of ethics, whether treated as a science, 
or practically applied in education, have neglected 
this difference, that the science has fallen into its 
present degraded state, and education itself has be- 
come a farce. 

What, then, you will say, is every thing com- 
pleted in Baptism ? Has man no future struggle to 
make ? May he repose, contentedly and securely, 
on what the Church has here done for him ? Un- 



CH. XX.] BAPTISM A COVENANT. 267 

doubtedly, in many cases. " It is certain, by God's 
Word, that children which are baptised, dying be- 
fore they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved.'" 1 
But all men do not die as children : they live for 
many years after their baptism. And though by 
baptism they have passed from the outer world into 
the porch, and even within the gates of the sanc- 
tuary of God, there is a power still around them 
which struggles to pull them back, and to pluck 
them out. It is against these attempts that the 
Christian has to fight. 

And here we enter on the great problem, not 
only of Christianity, but of nature, — man's free 
agency, and his position in a covenant with God. 
For Baptism is a covenant. The Church in Eng- 
land no longer registers the vow with the same so- 
lemn forms which the ancient Church once used — 
bringing men together before Baptism, and com- 
manding them, by the voice of their bishop, to make 
their public renunciation of the devil, and their pro- 
mise of obedience to Christ, with acts and gestures 
which could not be mistaken, — " turning from the 
west to the east," " stretching out their hands," re- 
peating promises, which they were warned at the 
time were registered in heaven, and would be pro- 
duced against them at the day of judgment ; even 
subscribing their names to the written declaration, 
and sealing it with their seals. All this has been 
set aside ; but still the form of words has been 
retained ; and adults for themselves, and children 
by their sponsors, are required to vow and promise 
voluntarily, that " they renounce the devil and all 
his works ;" that " they believe all the articles of 
the Christian faith ;" that they desire " to be bap- 
tised in this faith ;" and that " they will obediently 

1 Rubric in the Baptismal Service. 



268 NATURE OF A COVENANT. 

keep God's holy will and commandments, and walk 
in the same all the days of their life." The form 
has been changed : the truth continues the same. 
And upon their perseverance in this promise, and on 
this only, the privileges of Baptism are permanently 
secured to them. 

Now, are we quite aware of the real difficulty 
and mystery contained in this fact of a covenant 
between God and man? With the words we are 
very familiar ; but the whole depth of their mean- 
ing very few seem to discern. Perhaps there is 
nothing more thoroughly incomprehensible to the 
human understanding — nothing which it is com- 
pelled to receive more indisputably as a fact, with- 
out the power of reconciling it with its own funda- 
mental conceptions. For a covenant implies, in the 
first place, two independent agents. Where one 
exerts an absolute control over the other, there can 
be *no covenant. But how can a creature be con- 
ceived to be independent of his Creator ? His facul- 
ties — his affections — the whole of his internal nature, 
and the whole of the external circumstances which 
conspire to mould him — the mode in which he will 
be acted on by them — the result they will produce, 
— must, according to our conceptions, be arranged 
and foreseen by the Creator. He must be subject 
in every act to laws : for without laws to regulate 
the movements both of himself and of other things 
with which he is connected, we cannot conceive any 
thing to exist at all. Even chance is but another 
name for an unknown law. No effect can take 
place without a cause : that which determines the 
effect is law; and that law must be attributed to 
the Creator. 

But a covenant implies another fact still more 
wonderful. These two independent agents in it 
must also be mutually dependent. " If you do this, 



CH. xx.J god's covenant with man. 269 

I will do that," is the language on both sides. Each 
party professes to guide his own conduct by the 
movements of the other ; to place himself at his 
mercy, to constitute the other his master. Now, 
that the Creator of man, the Almighty God, should 
do this to one of his own weak and sinful creatures, 
is a problem which all philosophy may be defied to 
explain. It is no less than erecting man into an in- 
dependent deity, in some sense superior to his Maker, 
and governing the actions of his Maker — placing at 
his disposal the counsels and the works of God him- 
self. Thus Adam brought death into the world : 
thus the whole wonderful dispensation of the gos- 
pel, including all that Christ did, and, more than 
this, all that he suffered, with all the plans for the 
redemption of the world, stretching, as they have, 
through ages, — all were the work of one poor crea- 
ture. The actions of God himself were made de- 
pendent upon the acts of a man. This single tre- 
mendous fact is in itself sufficient to fix our eyes 
upon the earth as the scene of some wonderful dis- 
pensation. It may be, that all the hierarchy of 
heaven are so formed, so surrounded by influences 
of good, so secured against deviation from the will 
of God, that they move, as a mighty machine, un- 
conditionally, undoubtingly, and unerringly — every 
thought the reflection of truth, every feeling aspiring 
to God, every action the impulse of his will. In 
one portion only, the portion which fell, there may 
have been room to fall. But of this it is presump- 
tion to speak. But the relation of man to God, 
even in man's corruptible and fallen state, is far 
higher. It is the relation of two mighty potentates, 
capable of making a treaty, and binding each other 
by mutual conditions. The language is very awful ; 
but it does not go beyond the truth. If I have the 
power of thwarting the designs of God, of marring 

A A 2 



210 god's covenant with man. 

his creation, of disobeying his laws, I am, so far, 
an independent sovereign, and a sovereign of vast 
power, for it is a power reaching to the will of God 
himself. 

Now, why Almighty God should have placed 
man in this wonderful position to Himself, if we 
looked to our own moral nature, it might not be 
hard to understand. For we also (give us the whole 
scope of omnipotence, yet), as solitary beings, with- 
out other beings to love us, serve us, honour us, and 
whom we might love, and bless, and honour, should 
find even heaven a hell ; and such beings could not 
satisfy the real wants of our affections unless they 
were independent of ourselves. Were they the mere 
passive creatures of our own will, loving only be- 
cause we commanded them, moving only under im- 
pulse from ourselves, their love would be worthless. 

" Not free, what proof could they have given 
Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love, 
Where only what they needs must do appear'd, 
Not what they would? What praise could they receive, 
What pleasure I, from such obedience paid, 
When will and reason (reason also is choice), 
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil'd, 
Made passive both, had served necessity, 
Not me?" Paradise Lost, b. iii. 

And there may be, in the deep mystery of the 
Divine nature, facts corresponding with such an 
analogy. No where is it described as solitary. 
" The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his 
way, before his works of old. I was set up from 
everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth 
was . . . .When he prepared the heavens, I was there; 
when he set a compass upon the face of the depth ; 
. . . .when he gave to the sea his decree, that the 
waters should not pass his commandment ; when he 
appointed the foundations of the earth : then I was 



CH. XX.] FREE AGENCY. 271 

by him, as one brought up with him ; and I was 
daily his delight, rejoicing always before him." 
(Prov. viii. 22). 

But to argue from human nature to the nature 
of God, even in that moral nature, on the identity of 
which so much depends, may lead us perhaps, as it 
led Milton, to something like profane speculation. 
It is never safe to inquire why God acts as he does 
act. The fact is enough for us. 

But the mode in which he acts we may presume 
to study : and it may throw no little light, both on 
the perplexed question of man's free will, so im- 
portant in the science of Ethics, and (what is still 
better) on our practical duties connected with it. 
What, then, is the machinery, if we may so speak, 
employed in the creation of man's independent 
agency ? For this world is such a machinery : it is 
to repeat an illustration, a manufactory of free moral 
agents ; and the process is perplexed and difficult to 
follow. 

It is not, then, as most philosophers assume, 
by endowing man at his birth with what they call 
freedom, or spontaneity, by removing from him all 
restraints, laws, and obligations : as if a planet were 
created in space, and thrown free, under no law and 
no control, to wander through the heavens. With- 
out impulse impressed from without, and bias im- 
planted in its form, and law to regulate its relations 
to other bodies, neither the planet nor the mind 
could move at all. It could not even exist ; for it 
could have no character or attributes. Freedom, 
therefore, in this sense, is an absurdity. But man 
is created wholly under law and external influence — 
if you will, wholly a slave. He comes into the world 
with a mind receiving impressions, moving, desiring, 
feeling, all according to laws impressed on it by 
its Creator. He has a body attached to him, which 



272 FREE AGENCY, 

he did not make himself ; that body again formed 
to act by laws, and subject to external influences, 
all pre-arranged and determined. His whole inter- 
course with the world without, and with his fellow- 
beings, is resolvable into natural laws, which he 
cannot alter. He is imbedded, as it were, and in- 
corporated in the vast machine of the universe ; and 
all his movements are decided by the Hand which 
framed it and himself. 

In this state man is wholly a machine ; and we 
may dispense at once with all the discussions of 
materialists and sceptics, which turn on this ques- 
tion, and allow their assertions to be true. It is 
waste of time and argument to debate the point. 
And if this were all, then indeed the consequences 
might follow, which bad men are so anxious to draw 
from it. Man might be no longer be a responsible being; 
and virtue and vice would become a name. But 
against this mechanical force, binding down the na- 
tural man, God has been pleased to array another 
counteracting force — the force of threats and pro- 
mises, warnings and advice, punishments and re- 
wards, which appeal to man's knowledge and his 
reason ; and which even the natural man acknow- 
ledges to be obligatory. And man is made re- 
sponsible, not by being set free from any restraint, 
but by being placed between two counteracting re- 
straints. Here is the world and the flesh dragging 
him down to sin ; there is the voice of God, speak- 
ing through parents, ministers, experience, remorse, 
and calling on him to follow goodness. He is 
thrown by nature into one path, which nothing 
could save him from following blindly and mecha- 
nically, if no second power was exerted to throw 
him into another. When is the needle free to attach 
itself to the loadstone, if ever it can be called free ? 
Put one loadstone by it, and it falls at once. Place 



CH. XX.] F-REE AGENCY. 273 

another on the opposite side, and it vibrates tremu- 
lously between them, and then it is free. And thus 
God, in making man's nature the slave of pleasure, 
has yet so arranged both pleasure and pain — mixing 
in the cup of vice pleasure at the brim and pain in 
the dregs, and in the cup of virtue pain in the brim 
and pleasure in the dregs ; and has made the pain 
of vice so infinitely greater than the pain of virtue, 
and the pleasures of vice so infinitely less ; and has 
provided teachers and advisers all around us, set 
before us examples, beset us with influences of good 
as well as influences of evil — that there is no human 
being who can do wrong, without being self- con- 
demned — condemned by that very voice within him, 
which makes him the slave of pleasure ; still more 
as he rises above the mere animal nature, condemned 
by that love of higher enjoyment, intellectual as well 
as moral, which developes itself in the pursuit of 
truth, in the indulgence of natural affections, or in 
the gratification of the fancy. No man can be 
acting under the influence of his mechanical nature, 
without being brought to confess that it would be 
wiser and better for him to have obeyed the com- 
mands of God. The very fact of its being a me- 
chanical power which drags him on, condemns him 
for following it ; for his whole desire is freedom, and 
power, and escape from such subjection. And his 
self-condemnation is in proportion to the weakness 
of the temptation to which he has succumbed, and 
the strength and vividness of opposing warnings 
which have been placed against him. Sin is then 
the greatest when we sin against light. And so 
clear to the slightest reflection is the superiority of 
goodness over vice, that nothing can obliterate it. 
The consciousness of our folly ; our sense of weak- 
ness ; our consequent shame in the presence of other 
moral beings ; our conviction that they must regard 



274 FREE AGENCY. 

us with the same contempt with which we regard 
ourselves, and an expectation, as a necessary conse- 
quence, that they will wish to remove us from their 
presence, dealing with us as odious things, as we 
ourselves would deal with all things that are hate- 
ful and contemptible — all are rivetted as links in a 
chain. Were the whole universe of moral beings, 
and God himself, to pronounce that we were not 
despicable, guilty, and punishable for following evil 
instead of good, it would be impotent against the 
voice of our own hearts. Conscience would still 
remain ; and self-reproach be as keen as ever. You 
cannot destroy it by any arguments about mechan- 
ism and matter, because you cannot destroy the real 
relation between good and evil. 

And now observe how all the dealings of God 
with man have been carried on upon this principle 
of placing him between two opposing temptations, 
and trying if he would exercise the only freedom in- 
telligible or possible — that of doing the good which 
his reason approved, when evil was still powerfully 
attracting him. Can he resist temptation, and fol- 
low good? If he can, he possesses — not indeed 
freedom, for in following good he follows the im- 
pulse of his reason ; his will u decided by calcula- 
tion ; his affections move to an object ; he binds 
himself down to an external influence, just as much 
as before. He cannot, as a reasoning being — as a 
being at all — be free, in the sense of not being sub- 
ject to an external influence. But he has that which 
is the real element of moral greatness, the real thing 
for which men pursue what they call freedom, the 
real object of the love and admiration of moral 
beings, and which constitutes independence and per- 
sonality — he has power, energy, force — a fact which 
cannot be tested until he is seen to act in opposition 
to some mighty influence, to which Nature has sub- 



CH. XX.] FREE AGENCY. 27<3 

jected him. And when he does resist pleasure, 
and deny himself, and tear himself away from pre- 
sent and overpowering influences, by an internal 
summoning up of strength and reason, he does act 
in opposition to the whole laws of his mechanical 
nature. It is as if a boat, when hurried down a 
torrent, suddenly stopped, and shot upward. As if 
a stone cast into the air, resolved to remain sus- 
pended in it. As if a star shot from its course, and 
struck out its own path in the heavens. And such 
an act, at once, and none other, will make him, in 
strict language, a free agent and a person. 

And now, has man himself ever exerted such a 
power ? Did he in the garden of Eden, even when 
death on one side was balanced against eating an 
apple on the other ? Did he in the covenant with 
the Jews, where, to counteract the evil tendency of 
his nature, there was brought forward the whole 
array of external influences which man can imagine. 
Experience of past suffering in Egypt, the sight of 
miracles, the wandering in the wilderness, the pre- 
sence of God, His voice, the mountain blazing with 
fire, the promises, and still more the curses of the law, 
exhausting the whole range of the human fancy — 
the special immediate providences — the family, the 
state, and the priesthood, all framed into a bulwark 
against disobedience — the multitude of positive 
laws, reminding him at every step that he was placed 
under an awful discipline — the solemn duties imposed 
on him, the presence of heathenism in its worst enor- 
mities, the voice of prophecy, the hopes of a Mes- 
siah — every thing which a divine wisdom could in- 
vent to surround man with temptations to obedience, 
as he is surrounded by nature with temptations to 
disobedience — all were tried, and they all failed. It 
is not indeed possible to imagine how such sponta- 
neous power could be generated in the human heart, 



276 HEATHEN GOODNESS. 

by any contrivances of the kind. We may defy 
human reason to conceive the formation of inter- 
nal independent action in the mind of man by 
any merely external influences. You cannot hatch 
a stone into life. You cannot make a plank grow, 
though you plant it, and water it, and dig round it 
hour after hour. There is no germ of life within. 
It is not in nature. But even were it conceivable, 
practically we have had no experience of it. After 
such a trial as the Jews, we may well deny its pos- 
sibility as a matter of fact. You cannot imagine an 
external influence which was not exhausted upon 
them, and with what effect their history informs us. 
And yet, you will say, were no men good before 
the coming of our Lord ? Grant that the mass 
both of Jews and of heathens were corrupt, and un- 
changed by the external influences of virtue created 
for them by God, both in his natural and Mosaic 
dispensation, was no individual raised by them to 
true holiness and power ^ If in only one mind such 
a power was generated, your position is overturned, 
that such a phenomena is impossible. And again, 
no man during his whole life has been the slave of 
evil, but must have had intervals of good. During 
these intervals, has he not exerted this spontaneous 
power? Take the case of Abraham, of David, of 
Socrates, of the many other men recorded in his- 
tory, whose lives might be a pattern and a shame to 
Christians. I answer, that the question before us is 
not, whether they acted virtuously, were just, brave, 
temperate, pure, or wise ; but whether their virtue 
emanated wholly from an internal self-acting spring 
within them, without which, in the eye of one who 
could trace all the interior workings of their nature, 
they were as much the creatures of circumstances 
when doing good as when doing evil. And it is, 
I think, to circumstances created and combined by 



CH. XX.] HEATHEN GOODNESS, 277 

a merciful Providence, forming them with good con- 
stitutions of body from good parents, placing them 
under good teachers, throwing them into situations 
which either shocked them into virtue by the sight 
of vice, or preserved them in purity by the absence 
of temptation : — it is, I think, to such external influ- 
ences that we must attribute, as Plato did, all the na- 
tural goodness of man before the Christian era. The 
real internal power was still wanting. And the fact 
would be proved, if we were able to shew, as pro- 
bably no one will require to see proved, that not 
one of these persons, however consistent in general, 
passed through life without some evil, without being 
in some point or another subject to sin, and con- 
scious of his inability to escape from it. We have 
on this point the unanimous confession of the holiest 
and wisest men of antiquity. And one defect of 
power in any one point is quite sufficient to prove 
that, notwithstanding the general conformity of their 
actions to a right standard, they were still under 
the command of evil, and incapable of extricating 
themselves by any exertions of their own. Evil 
never attacks the whole man. It seizes some one 
part, and by its working there, we are to judge of 
its comparative power. Take a child, case him in 
armour, make the armour impenetrable to any wea- 
pon, and then set his enemy upon him. All the 
enemy's blows are wasted, and the child is safe ; but 
no more by his own force, than if he continued safe 
because no one happened to attack him. And some 
men Almighty God has been pleased thus to case in 
armour, and keep them pure in the midst of sin 
But let the battle be between two armed men. 
"Which is the stronger? Which is the master of 
the other ? One has secured himself at all points. 
Every blow is thrown off; every blot is covered. 
The other is guarded all over, but in one little spot, 

B B 



278 HEATHEN GOODNESS. 

at one single moment ; and in that spot, and at that 
moment, he is laid prostrate. If man does not pos- 
sess the power of resisting temptation whenever it 
occurs, and in whatever shape — if he succumbs to 
it in one single act knowingly and passively, be 
assured that in all others where he does not suc- 
cumb, he is propped up by external circumstances. 
For power is a thing absolute and perfect in itself, 
and admits of no degrees. Either I am in your 
power, or you are in mine. And when the com- 
batants are battling, an eye which could see the 
whole of the contest in all its parts from the begin- 
ning to the end, and discerned the weak point long 
before it was touched, would yet pronounce at once 
which was the master, though the conflict for a time 
seemed dubious, and even occasional advantages 
were gained by the party to be vanquished. When 
a cat is playing with a mouse, you do not say that, 
the mouse has power over the cat, because it is per- 
mitted to escape for a moment. A tree falls to the 
ground, but not owing to its own strength, but to 
the deficiency of strength in its supporters. And 
so all the acts of goodness done in the world by 
man, while man was left to himself, were, it would 
seem, the result of circumstances. The power of 
evil was lessened, or that of good increased : but 
the heart of man was still propelled by the force of 
temptation, by an impulse from without. In reality 
there was no resistance — no real power. It pursued 
virtue because it was agreeable, safe, elevated, noble, 
expedient, natural, politic, wise. The heart followed 
its own bent ; and that bent, by a merciful Provi- 
dence, happened to be on the right side — but it was 
nothing more. 

And therefore the goodness of heathens is no 
proof that man by himself can triumph over exter- 
nal influences ; and the words are true, that " the 



CH. XX.] CATHOLIC DOCTHINE OF FREE AGENCY. 279 

condition of man is such, that he cannot turn and 
prepare himself, by his own natural strength and 
good works, to faith and calling upon God." 1 

And yet, without this power of turning himself, 
how can he attain the perfection of his nature, after 
which he is constantly sighing — the Ivfyyua, which 
Aristotle requires as the first condition of mind ; 
the denial of self, which Plato describes as the very 
essence of virtue: the regal sovereignty of the Stoics; 
the liberty and spontaneity, without w 7 hich modern 
philosophers have assumed that there is neither good- 
ness nor happiness ? How, perhaps it might even 
be said, can we be to other moral beings — even to 
God himself — an object of love and affection, as an 
independent moral agent ? 

And yet again, one more difficulty : how, if this 
independent power be attained, is it to be reconciled 
with the absolute unity and supremacy of God, as 
the one sole fount of all power, from whom all 
creation flows, and without whom nothing can exist? 
This is, and always has been, the great problem of 
ethical philosophy ; and human reason never has 
solved it, and never will. 

And yet it has been solved by the Church. The 
Church comes to man, enslaved as he is to the out- 
ward influences of the natural man, and not only 
brings before him more facts, more knowledge, new 
relations, higher promises, more awful threats, and 
a more powerful body of advisers, to counteract 
them. This would indeed be much ; and some men 
seem to imagine that it is all. And yet, if what was 
said before is true, even all this would be useless. 
It would be only an external power; and external 
power alone cannot change the heart. And there- 
fore the Church gives more : it puts into the heart 

1 Articles of Religion, x. 



280 CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF FREE AGENCY. 

a new principle, or rather a new being, or rather, if 
we may so dare to speak, God himself, by imparting 
to it the Holy Spirit, and uniting it to the Body of 
Christ. It is from this Holy Spirit, and this only, 
that all the real power and spontaneity of man pro- 
ceeds. It acts as the individual himself, because it 
is united to himself. It is given secretly and imper- 
ceptibly ; so that in an action he cannot discriminate 
what comes from heaven, and what from himself, 
except from the consciousness of the fact that he 
is resisting evil. He does make this resistance, he 
suffers pain voluntarily, he feels the whole force of 
the attraction of evil, and yet remains firm against 
it ; and discovers no power but his own which is thus 
acting ; and yet he knows that it is not his own. 

" 1 can do all things," says St. Paul, in the full 
consciousness of his individual personality. And 
yet he says again, " Not I, but Christ that is in me." 
It is, after all, God, and God alone, who works 
within us, "to will and to do of his good pleasure." 
Every act of power is thus referred to him : and 
the man who is doing good, traces up every element 
out of which his goodness is formed to the hand of 
the one supreme Author of all good. The laws by 
which his mind works — the external circumstances 
of the material world in which he is placed — the 
constitution of his body — the conditions of his birth, 
family, education, profession, association with other 
men, all of them co-operating to produce one general 
end — more especially his admission into the Church 
— the free gift of the Holy Spirit, the subsequent 
opportunities of keeping it alive within him — and 
all the other aids of Christian doctrine and practice, 
— all come from God. And thus is solved the pro- 
blem — how to create an agent possessed of the con- 
sciousness of individual independence, and yet to 
reconcile that independence with the absolute uni- 



CH. XX.] CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF FREE AGENCY. 281 

venal sovereignty of the supreme Creator. Man is 
placed here upon earth apart from the direct pre- 
sence of God, before which, from the constitution 
of his nature, it might be wholly impossible for him 
to sin by disobedience : the influence would seem to 
be overpowering, leaving no opening for free agency. 
He is subjected to external influences, which his own 
heart condemns, and against which he is warned by 
all the solemn admonitions of his moral teachers, 
and the Church, and by the punishments of Nature 
— but warned only ; no power is exerted over him, 
to drag him back against his will. And thus, in 
following evil, he feels that he is acting of himself 
— he makes a choice — he resists good — he becomes 
an ap^n' 7rpol<;EU)$, an originating agent ; and this he 
never could become, were he placed only before one 
road, and tied down to it by influences of good only, 
as a steam carriage is propelled upon a rail-road ; 
for no sense of power can be generated without 
something to resist, and without a sense of power 
there can be no consciousness of independent per- 
sonality. And then, while this evil power, if power 
it may be called, continues still in action, secretly 
and silently another power is insinuated into his 
heart, which raises him up to resist in a contrary 
direction, to fight against evil, to overcome it ; while 
still he has the choice of submitting to it. And this 
power being God himself, the omnipotence, and 
predestinating will, and entire supremacy of God, 
is reconciled with the consciousness of free agency 
in man. Looking forward, man feels that he is free : 
looking back, that he has entirely been moulded by 
the hands of God. Here again there are two doc- 
trines, the one seemingly incompatible with the other. 
Human reason will acknowledge one, and exclude 
the other. And yet both have found their advo- 
cates, and both are incontestibly asserted by facts. 
b b 2 



282 PREDESTINATION. 

Catholic Christianity holds them both. It warns, 
encourages, blames, praises, punishes, and rewards 
Christians as free : it declares to them, at the same 
time, that they are wholly the creatures of God, that 
they can do nothing without him. It commands 
men to hold both these truths ; and though they 
cannot be held in the mind at one and the same 
moment, to think of one at one time, and the other 
at another — of their free agency when they are about 
to act, of their predestination when they have acted. 
All indolence, weakness, carelessness, and despair, 
is to be checked by the consciousness of our indi- 
vidual responsibility, and sense of the power within 
us, given to us by the presence of Christ. All pre- 
sumption and self-gratulation is to be crushed by 
the acknowledgment of Him as the one sole author 
of our goodness. And as at no moment, while life 
remains, can we be without a field of action, with- 
out something to do, and some opportunity of doing 
right, the Church absolutely forbids us ever to think 
of predestination when we are looking back upon 
our sins. " The Lord," we know, " hath made all 
things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day 
of evil" (Prov. xvi. 4). But it is not for us to dwell 
on this, when we are conscious of being wicked : 
our duty is to escape, to act, to think of the future 
more than of the past. We have no business with 
the thought of predestination then, as we have no 
business with the thought of free agency when we 
are looking back upon our goodness. Regulate and 
distribute the thoughts, each under their proper oc- 
casion and all will be right. So God is all love ; 
and yet he is all justice. Merge either love in jus- 
tice, or justice in love— as human reason is prone 
to do — and what becomes of our religion and our 
virtue ? Hold them both, and yet misapply them ; 
speak of God's love to the hardened sinner, and of 



CH. XX. J SEVENTEENTH ARTICLE. 283 

his justice to the trembling penitent, — and you con- 
firm the recklessness of the one, and stifle the refor- 
mation of the other. Adjust them rightly, and you 
may save them both. And so with the mysterious 
union of man's free agency and God's predestina- 
tion. Do not attempt to reconcile them, that is, to 
merge one in the other ; but hold them both, and 
only be careful how you apply them. Follow, in one 
word, the Church, as she has declared her doctrine in 
a form, which sound moralists must always regard 
as combining the profoundest philosophy with a 
precise, discriminating, moderate, and practical pru- 
dence, and as affording a most admirable specimen 
of the true ethical spirit of the Catholic Church. 

Let us conform to the seventeenth article. No 
philosophy ever surpassed it in its conformity to 
facts. No education can be good which does not 
follow its practical advice, which is the same that I 
have here endeavoured to put forth. I will go fur- 
ther, and say, that an education which endeavours 
to slur over this problem as one full of danger, 
(which it is), and does not positively and boldly 
take its stand on a definite declaration of the truth, 
will be pregnant with mischief. Has man any indi- 
vidual personality, or is he a mere machine ? This 
question must be answered both by the teacher and 
the pupil, before it is possible to decide on the sys- 
tem by which he is to be governed and moulded. 
In the present day, alarmed at the extravagances of 
Calvinism, perplexed still more by the embarrass- 
ments of a rationalistic controversy on such a mys- 
terious subject, in which rationalism must always be 
lost, because its very principle is to retain only one 
doctrine, when experience declares that there are 
two, — men have endeavoured to evade the question. 
They have almost prohibited its discussion ; and yet 
they cannot prohibit themselves from pronouncing 



284 SEVENTEENTH ARTICLE. 

upon it. And if you examine their schemes of edu- 
cation, you will find that they all do pronounce on 
it, though covertly, and almost unknown to them- 
selves. They frame a scheme of education, which 
treats man as a machine ; as if by external influ- 
ences you might turn and bend him as you like ; 
and, at the same time, they lay that education be- 
fore him, acknowledging his right to judge of it, 
choose it, or abandon it, as he likes, as being a free, 
independent agent. They recognise — they cannot 
help recognising — both the facts ; but they leave out 
all mention of Almighty God. Their education- 
committee is to do what the Church declares that 
God alone can do, in forming and moulding man. 
And man's independent will is appealed to as a 
source of power and seat of wisdom — not that Spirit 
of God imparted to him through the sacraments, 
and working imperceptibly in his heart, without 
which the Church declares that his free agency is a 
delusion, and he himself, with all his seeming re- 
sistance to good, a mere slave in the hands of evil. 
I assert, that the theorists of modern education have 
their seventeenth article as well as the Church — 
that Aristotle has one also — that Plato has one like- 
wise — that it appears and re-appears in every scheme 
of philosophy which concerns itself with the nature 
of man — and will appear to the end of the world. 
And even if the teacher could set it aside from his 
own view, he cannot cover it up from the eyes of 
the pupil. I would appeal to every reader, young 
as well as old, if he has not at some time of his life 
plunged into this speculation. He cannot escape it. 
It is working in young minds around us to an ex- 
tent of which few are aware, but those who have 
had a long practical experience in the details of 
education. It rises up in the human heart with the 
first consciousness of sin, and the first hopes of hea- 



CH. XX.] SEVENTEENTH ARTICLE. 2Qo 

ven ; and if the teacher does not stand by, and aid 
the struggle, and place the truth forward boldly and 
definitely, as the Church proclaims it, and couple it 
with the warnings as to its application which the 
Church lays down, the consequences are often fatal. 
Presumption or despair is the necessary result : and 
let us take warning in time. 



286 man's covenant with nature. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Man, then, in the rite of Baptism is treated as an 
independent agent — just as he is treated both by his 
fellow- creatures in their ordinary intercourse with 
him, and by God in the system of nature. All our 
intercourse with society is a scheme of compromises, 
mutual concessions, reciprocal action, in which two 
separate parties are recognised, and though sepa- 
rate, still connected. And I might add that this 
holds good, notwithstanding the fact that one is 
formed out of the other. That the child is created 
by the father, no way supersedes his subsequent in- 
dependence. The soap-bubbles are blown from the 
mouth, but they detach themselves, and fly away 
each in its own orbit ; and the voice which would 
recall them must deal with them as no longer fas- 
tened to their matrix. Even the very physical world 
places itself in a covenant with him. It respects him 
as one having originating powers ; consents to be- 
come his servant, if he submit to certain conditions ; 
and if those conditions are neglected, it destroys 
him. The water says, I will suffocate you, if you 
venture into me rashly ; but I will carry you on my 
surface, minister to your thirst, feed the well-spring 
of your life, if you will adhere to my laws. The fire 
is ready to burst out and devour him like stubble, 
and make the face of his abode a desolation ; but it 
is tame and innocent as the breath of air, and per- 
forms for him the most menial offices, when he re- 
spects its terms. The rock will crush him to atoms, 
or imprison him in an inextricable dungeon, if he 



CH. XXI.] CONDITIONS OF THE COVENANT. 287 

neglects the law of gravitation ; but by the very same 
law it will shelter him, defend him, throw itself into 
shapes of beauty, and strew itself under his feet, that 
he may fly along the surface of the earth — if man 
does what? 

This question I now propose to answer. 

What are the conditions which these external 
powers of the world, all delegated and commissioned 
by God, and representing the will of God, impose 
upon man for his observance, as the price of those 
innumerable blessings which they impart to him ? 
Nature, mankind, the Church, all agree in their sti- 
pulations ; and upon these stipulations it is clear that 
his duties are founded. His very existence depends 
on them ; much more his happiness and goodness. 

I answer, then, that the first condition impera- 
tively required of him in entering into relation with 
all these contracting parties is, that he learn a creed. 
They all recognise him as a being having intellect, 
and in whom intellect is the essential and ruling 
principle, on which all the other parts of his nature 
depend. So Aristotle declares, that the individual 
personality of each man lies in his vov$, or thinking 
principle — wvq ycc.% ix.ourrog. And so Plato places 
the same intellect at the head of his whole constitu- 
tion, as a monarch over counsellors and subjects. 
And so our own great moralist, Bishop Butler, makes 
the reason by which we distinguish between good 
and evil the supreme authority in man. 

None of them, indeed, in thus asserting the su- 
premacy of the intellect, dreamed of confounding, 
as modern rationalists confound, the power by which 
we receive in our minds fundamental truth, and that 
by which we trace the connexion between these and 
subordinate truths. " There is one faculty," says 
Aristotle, 1 " by which man comprehends and em- 
1 Nicomach. Ethics, lib. vi. 



288 FIEST CONDITION KNOWLEDGE. 

bodies in his belief first principles which cannot be 
proved, which he must receive from some authority; 
there is another by which, when a new fact is laid 
before him, he can shew that it is in conformity with 
some principle possessed before. One process re- 
sembles the collection of materials for building — the 
other, their orderly arrangement. One is intuition 
— the other, logic. One vovg — the other, Itcktt^^. 99 
Or, to use a modern distinction, one is reason in its 
highest sense — the other, understanding. 

Now the logical faculty in man, by which he 
proves and demonstrates problems, does not in any 
sense occupy the paramount place in his nature. 
But the real reason or faculty with which he em- 
braces truth, is indeed his distinguishing mark, his 
essence. And it is this which is contemplated by 
God both in nature and revelation, when, in the 
covenant which he vouchsafes to make with man, 
the intellect is first addressed. Without this being 
in right order, the whole nature of man is considered 
worthless, and only fit to be destroyed. 

The bad sophistical schools of the present day, 
with all their faults, are not so much in the wrong, 
when they make ignorance the great evil, and know- 
ledge the great good of man. Their folly consists 
only in not knowing what constitutes ignorance and 
knowledge, nor how they are produced. "Know 
me," says the Power which stands over man ; whe- 
ther the power of the elements of matter, or the 
laws of creation, or his parent, or his teacher, or his 
fellow-man — "Know me and my nature, compre- 
hend my attributes, measure my strength, realise my 
presence, become familiar with my movements, and 
then I will be your slave, and you shall be my mas- 
ter." "What is all physical philosophy, chemistry, 
zoology, medicine, astronomy, but the knowledge of 
a power which we are able to command, when we 



CH. XXI.] ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 289 

have investigated its nature ? What is government 
founded on, but on the knowledge of the nature of 
man, and the circumstances of nations ? What is 
every act of a reasoning being, but the embodying 
in some external form a belief, or truth, or intellec- 
tual conception ? Knowledge is the skeleton, on 
which all the muscles, and nerves, and flesh of our 
being are hung and framed ; or rather the heart, 
from which every pulse of life beats and circulates. 
What is action, or art, or feeling, without science or 
knowledge as its basis ? And what is knowledge 
but a creed ? And therefore, when the Church 
insists that the first thing required of persons to 
be baptised should be the reception and belief of 
a creed, she only acts on a principle, which every 
human being in his senses hourly acts on likewise 
— which he cannot dispute without overturning his 
own existence. 

And this creed is a summary of facts relating to 
the nature and operations of the great Being with 
whom he is placed in covenant — -just as the creed 
of the physician contains the history of the healing 
and destructive power of the animal world ; and as 
the creed of the chemist developes the workings of 
that chemical power, by which the combinations of 
elementary substances are regulated. 

It is also partial. It does not tell all that might 
be told, but leaves much in mystery ; making him 
who studies it conscious that there is much behind 
to be still discovered. And where is the creed of 
any science, which does not lead the eye into depths 
yet unexplored in the distance ? 

It is divisible into two parts — one relating to 
the mysterious sanctuary of God's nature, into which 
no eye ever yet penetrated, and which we can learn 
only by his own declaration ; the other to facts 
which have taken place under the eye of man him- 
c c 



290 ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 

self. That a Being in the form of man died and rose 
again from the dead, is a fact of experience — that 
that great Being is himself divine, is not a fact of 
experience : it is told us by God. And there is the 
same division in the creeds of science. There are 
articles in them which we take upon trust, because 
we find them implanted in us by nature, and read 
them there as in the handwriting of God. That the 
laws of nature are permanent — that similar causes 
produce similar effects — that nothing can happen 
without a cause — that no power can generate a 
power greater than itself — that contradictories can- 
not be true ; — these are abstract truths, which to 
attempt to prove would argue madness, but without 
' which the science of nature must fall to the ground. 
We believe them on the authority of our Maker, 
speaking through the immutable instincts of our 
mind. And the other articles of the creed of man 
are collections from human experience. They are 
facts, which, without experience, man could not have 
prophesied: as, that the strata of the earth lie in 
such an order ; that the atoms of matter combine 
together in such and such proportions ; that animal 
bodies are framed upon such and such a type. 

And these latter articles of experience in the 
creed of Christianity as well as of natural science, we 
receive alike on the testimony of men. Men whom 
we have no reason to doubt have with their senses 
witnessed such and such facts. Not one merely, but 
many have made the experiment. They have de- 
clared them not as fancies of their own, not as de- 
ductions of reason, but as things which " they have 
heard and seen." And when philosophers persist in 
refusing credence to the system of Newton, until they 
have verified individually all Newton's observations, 
or will receive no primary facts by tradition which 
they have not experienced themselves, then Chris- 



CH. XXI.] ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION'. 291 

tians may think it irrational to admit the facts of 
Christianity on the testimony of the Church. They, 
indeed, who would doubt these latter facts, and yet 
would teach the world some physical creed of their 
own, might also ask themselves, if, like Christianity, 
they have an organised society perpetuated through 
eighteen centuries for the very purpose of transmit- 
ting them unaltered — whether the founders of their 
theory sacrificed their lives in attestation of it — 
whether it has stood the test of the practical ex- 
perience of millions since first it was published — 
whether it has been probed and sounded by the 
most searching scepticism that ever was arrayed 
against a doctrine — whether it is confined entirely 
to simple facts of observation, in which men's senses * 
are not likely to be deceived, or is mixed up with 
some human deductions and fancies — whether, lastly, 
the experiments which they record have ever been 
submitted to the eye-witness of five thousand men 
at once, repeated again and again in the face of de- 
termined enemies, and acknowledged as facts even 
by them ? And, let it be remembered, such a ques- 
tion would become not only those who may dispute 
the miraculous origin of Christianity, but those also 
who would overlook its transmission of a definite 
creed. It has been said before, but in these days 
cannot be repeated too often, that the transmission 
of such a creed is just as much a matter of histori- 
cal evidence, attested by the senses of men, as the 
miracles of our Lord. 

Neither is it useless to observe, that chemistry 
and philology, and all other human sciences, begin 
with teaching children their several creeds, as the 
very basis of their education, just as the Church puts 
her own creed into the mouth of the person to be 
baptised, even though it be an infant. Both parties 
recognise alike, that without a fixed foundation of 
truth all education is useless. Neither of them ask, 



292 ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 

if the party to be educated understands what he is 
thus taught. Both know that he cannot understand 
it ; for to understand implies that he possesses some 
previous principle already, under which he reduces 
his new acquisition. And as yet his mind is un- 
awakened. Yet both know also that he has within 
him a power of apprehension, by which he can fix 
these truths in his memory, incorporate them in a 
belief, act upon them, realise them, test them by 
subsequent experience, without at present perceiv- 
ing their consistency. He can believe without un- 
derstanding. Shew me the man who has reduced 
into a perfect intelligible system, resting upon some 
one principle, from which all the rest flow, every 
action of his life, and every conclusion and principle 
of his knowledge ; and then we may be called on to 
prove that understanding a principle is necessary to 
believing it. 

But man's life, we know, is full of inconsistencies, 
and his knowledge at the best is a mass of undi- 
gested, unreconciled facts and principles, the greater 
part of which he has never attempted to reduce into 
harmony with each other, and therefore to under- 
stand ; and upon which, nevertheless, he acts with 
as much confidence as if he saw through them all. 
You may as well say that a child cannot learn by 
heart an unintelligible jargon of words, or do as he 
is bid, without comprehending the object of the 
command, as that he cannot believe without un- 
derstanding. On the contrary, the credulity of man 
is insatiable. It grasps any thing and every thing. 
It is as capacious as the mind itself, which is a whole 
universe in miniature. The slightest touch removes 
all its difficulties. 

" Seb. A living drollery ! Now I will believe 
That there are unicorns ; that in Arabia 
There is one tree, the phoenix' throne ; one phoenix 
At this hour reigning there. 



CH. XXI.] ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 293 

Ant. I'll believe both ; 

And what does else want credit, come to me, 
And I'll be sworn 'tis true. Travellers ne'er did lie. 
Though fools at home condemn them." 

Tempest, act, iii. sc. 3. 

Think only of that prodigious leap which the mind 
takes on its very first experience, which it repeats 
every hour, without which it could make no ad- 
vance whatever into knowledge — the act of gene- 
ralisation. The child is burnt by the fire to-day — 
and yet on that one experience it believes immedi- 
ately that fire will burn him ever after — that it has 
burnt and will burn every one from the beginning 
to the end of the world — that every thing resem- 
bling fire will possess the same property. I say that 
such an act of credulity surpasses any which could 
be laid to the charge of the merest idiot. And yet 
it is universal. It is compelled by Nature — it is 
sanctioned and confirmed by experience. It is the 
foundation of all knowledge — the conclusion of all 
inquiry ; and all that reason has to do, is to see, not 
that our generalisation is correct, for of this we 
never doubt (no man doubts that precisely the same 
cause, under precisely the same circumstances, will 
always produce precisely the same effect), but that 
we have not, owing to the imperfection of our 
senses, or the carelessness of our survey, mistaken 
the cause, left out some element in the fact, or 
included one which is not essential to it. 

And both the philosopher and the Church know 
also that the whole process of man's acquisition of 
knowledge is not the collecting it from scattered 
facts, but the tracing it in facts. Men do not pick 
up knowledge, as in the Eastern tale the woman ate 
her rice, atom by atom. He receives it in solid 
morsels. He has the general laws given him, and 
afterwards he applies them to practice. And there- 
c c 2 



294 ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 

fore without learning a creed at the very beginning 
of a study, the study cannot be carried on. 

They both know also, that to convey this creed 
to the mind of the ignorant student, one condition 
is required, — without which, the attempt is as incon- 
ceivable as to pour water into one vessel without 
previously having it in another, and establishing 
some communication between them. Neither phi- 
losophy nor the Church dream of putting knowledge 
before the young in the shape of books, without 
men to assist and explain them. They do not 
establish printing-presses, and call them schools. 
They have books indeed, but they put them into 
the hands of men, whom the young can love, and 
fear, and desire to imitate, and cling to with the 
affection of the heart, as to superior beings ; whom 
they wonder at and reverence ; whose life is a mys- 
tery to them ; whose smile delights ; whose frown 
appals them ; who stand to them in the place of 
God, until the eye can be purged to see beyond 
them the real divinity which is in them. They 
attach the mind of the student, young or old, to the 
mind of his teacher ; and then, by this feeling of 
faith, as by an electric conductor, the whole stream 
of knowledge passes from one mind to the other. 

They know also, that when this faith is wanting, 
no power on earth can compel the mind to imbibe 
knowledge. You may strive to bury the seed in the 
hard and frozen soil, but it will never take root. 
You may force the tongue to repeat words, but it 
will be always with a secret sneer ; and when a 
sneer is on the lips, never can truth be in the 
heart. And faith they both assign to one and the 
same source — the gift of God. Both declare that 
it cannot be created by any human reasoning. Let 
a chemist take a child, arrange before him his gases 
and his metals, and proceed to deduce from experi- 



CH. XXI.] ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 295 

ments the general laws of chemistry. He wishes to 
prove that fluid arsenic is an antiseptic. Let him 
perform experiment upon experiment, day after 
day, and hour after hour, and unless one previous 
condition exist in the mind of the child, he will be 
as far at the end of years from conveying to the 
mind of that child a belief of the general law, that 
fluid arsenic is always antiseptic, as he was at the 
beginning. No accumulation of experiments ivhat- 
ever can bring a general laiv home to the mind of 
man ; because, if we rest upon experiments, our 
conclusions can never logically pass beyond the 
bounds of our premises ; we can never infer more 
than we have proved ; and all the past, which we 
have not seen, and the future, which we cannot see, 
is still left open, in w T hich new experiences may arise 
to overturn the present theory. And yet the child 
will believe at once upon a single experiment. Why ? 
Because a hand divine has implanted in him the 
tendency to generalise thus rapidly. Because he 
does it by an instinct, of which he can give no ac- 
count, except that he is so formed by his Maker. 

It is God who has given him this faith. And so 
of Christianity. All the miracles in the Bible might 
be again, as they once before were, wrought before 
men, without leading them to the conclusion that He 
who wrought them was commissioned from God, un- 
less another principle of natural faith were implanted 
by the Holy Spirit. Evidences will not make a 
Christian. They may affect the understanding, con- 
vince the logical faculty, by shewing that Christianity 
presents nothing discordant with facts, or inconsistent 
with itself. But this is not the reason, the \6yoq, 
by which we recognise the Church and our Lord as 
our Teacher and Master. " You say what I cannot 
disprove, but I cannot assent to it," is a common 
profession to hear. And the assent of the mind to 



296 ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 

truth is, in all cases, the work not of the under- 
standing, but of the reason. Men are not convinced 
by syllogisms ; but when they believe a principle, 
or wish to believe, then syllogisms are brought in to 
prove it. When man has accepted Christianity, 
then he may illustrate it by evidences. And the 
reason of man in all cases — the power, that is, by 
which, instinctively, intuitively, without knowing 
why, or engaging in argument, he grasps the first 
principles of knowledge, and the undemonstrable 
truths, from which all other truths are educed, — this 
power is divine. It is the reason of God his Maker 
working in the heart of man. And hence the Chris- 
tian Fathers uniformly assigned the knowledge of 
truth possessed by the Greek philosophers, just as 
much as the faith of Christians, to the same source, 
if not to the same kind of inspiration. It was the 
\oyoq, or word, or reason of God. They agreed, 
so far, with a deep Christian philosophy of more 
modern days, that man sees all things in God. 

Once more : the philosophy of the intellect and 
the Church agree perfectly in insisting that the 
learner should receive into his mind, without the 
slightest omission or alteration, the whole body of 
first facts and principles put before him, on the 
authority of his teacher. They are both rigidly- 
precise in guarding against the minutest alteration 
in their fundamental doctrines. Geometry, for in- 
stance, begins with definitions. Will it permit the 
student to alter them even in the least point } or 
must they be learned precisely as they are given ? 
Chemistry is the science of certain changes which 
take place in the combination of matter ; and those 
changes depend on certain substances mixing toge- 
ther in certain proportions. Will those proportions 
admit of being carelessly slurred over, or changed ? 
Grammar is the science of the inflexions which 



CH. XXI.J ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 297 

words are made to take in order to express cor- 
responding varieties of ideas. Will a Greek scholar 
permit the substitution of an o for an a, or the omis- 
sion of an accent, or the alteration of a breathing ? 
And so, will the Church tolerate that any portion 
whatever of her revealed creed should be left out 
or modified by her student in theology ? Does she 
feel the value of iotas ? Much, indeed, beyond the 
pale of positive revelation, she leaves to the inquiry 
of the student ; as, also, much which is not con- 
tained in the rules of syntax, or in the grammar of 
chemistry, is open to future speculation. Some- 
thing also she permits apparently to be added — ap- 
parently, not really ; she allows a proper authority, 
when emergencies arise, to put together several 
revealed truths, and deduce from them, not a new 
doctrine, but a new expression of the old doctrines ; 
just as the doctrine of the Trinity is a formal deve- 
lopment of doctrines contained in the Church from 
the beginning, — and as the thirty-nine articles are 
larger than the creeds, and contain inferences and 
deductions from the creeds and Scriptures, as well 
as the creeds and Scriptures themselves. And so a 
great portion of modern philosophy is a new combi- 
nation of old materials, received from the original 
authors — a combination wrought by each successive 
age for purposes of its own — placed perhaps on 
more dubious ground, resting for authority on the 
original sources, open to suspicion as being the work 
of inferior minds, whose logical powers might have 
deceived them — and yet, at the same time, extremely 
valuable as an antidote to principles which would 
corrupt the original truth. For instance : " There 
are," says Xenophon, in his Memorabilia, speaking 
of the existing schools of philosophy, " two sects ; 
the former describe the whole universe as one. They 
are, in fact, Pantheists. The latter describe it as 



298 ANALOGY OF INSTEUCTION. 

many. They are Polytheists." Here were two 
systems of belief; and there was authority for both. 
For the whole universe, we know, must have pro- 
ceeded from one Creator ; it must be held together 
by one pervading spirit ; it must form one system. 
But, again, we see that it is composed of parts. 
There are in it various, to us independent, agents. 
Every living being seems to have a power within it 
of originating spontaneous motion. It is full of di- 
visions. There are in it counteracting principles — 
decay as well as growth, evil as well as good. There- 
fore the universe is many. And this also is true. 
Both facts formed part of an original creed of phi- 
losophy received from its first founders. But when, 
instead of holding them both, the restless logic of 
the Greeks began to infer from the unity of the 
world that there was no plurality in it, or from the 
plurality in it that there was no unity, then Plato 
stepped in and framed from the two separate doc- 
trines a new formula, not different from them, but 
newly stated, and containing them both — namely, 
that the universe possessed both unity and plurality 
together, was one in many, and many in one. And 
this doctrine of philosophy, exactly analogous to the 
Trinitarian doctrine of the Church in the mode of 
its expansion, he has stated at great length in one 
of his most important dialogues, the Parmenides, 
and made it the foundation of his whole philosophy, 
practical, moral, and political, as well as metaphy- 
sical. In the same manner, ail the conclusions of 
mathematics are deductions from distinct principles 
established separately in the axioms and definitions. 
And every action of man is a deduction from the 
data of many separate sciences : as, his taking a 
walk for exercise is founded on certain laws of gra- 
vitation belonging to the physical philosopher, on 
laws of health laid down by the physician, on laws 



CR" XXI. ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 299 

of prudence derived from the moralist. He com- 
bines them, and draws the inference. And without 
this power of drawing inferences, the separate know- 
ledge will be useless, Only he, like the Christian 
Church, must take care that no conclusion is drawn 
which is not contained in the premises. He must 
not add to his original creed, in the mere attempt 
to make a new arrangement of it. 

Once more : the Christian Church recognising, 
as all sound philosophy must do, the distinction be- 
tween man's reason and his understanding — between 
the faculty by which he imbibes truth from others, 
and the faculty by which he discerns its internal 
consistency with itself — recognises also the order 
in which they necessarily come. It promises, that 
if the student believes first, subsequently he shall 
be able to understand. If he receives what he is 
taught, then he will be able to apply it to practice, 
and to discover its correctness and agreement with 
facts. But " if ye will not believe, surely ye shall 
not be established " (Isa. vii. 9). It does not ex- 
clude the understanding, but places it in its proper 
subordination. 

So far, then, there is little difference or none 
between that part of heathen Ethics which regards 
the intellectual principle in man, and the analogous 
part of Christian doctrine. 

But two points still remain, which in the pre- 
sent day require to be carefully noticed. 

In the first place, there is in this day little, com- 
paratively speaking, of that gross infidelity which 
rejected the whole creed of Christianity as a delu- 
sion. Most men affect to believe in the historical 
facts contained in it, such as the miracles of its 
propagation, and the resurrection of our Lord. 
They have no objections to a creed containing these 
being taught to the young. But they do object to 



300 ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 

what they term the metaphysical subtleties and de- 
finitions respecting the divine nature. All these 
they would exclude from religious education, as un- 
necessary, and even mischievous. Facts — not what 
they term abstractions — are to be all that is offered 
to the reason. Now Arisrotle himself made this 
distinction between the subject with which the 
reason, or, in his language, the vov ?, of man is con- 
versant. Some are facts cognisant by the senses ; 
others, general laws and abstract truths. But Aris- 
totle declares that both are necessary to man, and 
so does the Church. And so, also, would every art 
and science, if they thoroughly understood then- 
own processes. 

I assert that metaphysical abstractions are in all 
cases the first things conveyed to the child, and 
which must be conveyed to him before he can be 
instructed in any facts — that in teaching even the 
most menial art, requiring only a succession of ser- 
vile actions, as digging in the ground, or hewing a 
plank, without metaphysical actions at the basis, no 
art can be inculcated ; just as it is wholly impossible 
to teach what are called the facts of Christianity, 
without also inculcating what are termed, and falsely 
termed, the speculative doctrines of the Church. 
The theory is the root of the practice. The facts 
are the evolution of the doctrine. Is there any art 
whatever which is not founded on a science, either 
real or supposed ? The farmer is a chemist, the 
watchmaker a mechanician, the sailor an astrono- 
mer, the tax-gatherer a political economist, the poet 
a philosopher, the miner a geologist, the gardener a 
botanist. Without a science as the basis of all these 
practical operations, they are mere quackery, and 
cannot answer. You may hide general rules, and 
wrap up the abstract laws on which they are founded 
in the particular rules ; but even then you teach the 



CH. XXI.] ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 301 

laws, though not in a distinct form ; for they can- 
not be excluded from the facts by which they are 
exemplified. And why do you not take the trouble 
to state them distinctly ? Because you would deal 
with the mind which you are teaching, as with a 
dull and obtuse intellect, incapable of comprehend- 
ing them. The moment you discover a higher 
understanding, you proceed to lay before him the 
science as well as the art. You insist on his learn- 
ing it. What are schools of design for our manu- 
facturers, of geometry for our sailors, of chemistry 
for our farmers, but recognitions of the propriety 
of teaching abstract truths wherever there is a mind 
capable of receiving them ? Now the Church treats 
all its children with equal respect. It believes them 
all equally capable of imbibing and appreciating the 
higher truths of religion, as well as its mere facts — 
equally capable, not by their own natural powers, 
but because all are equally endowed by baptism 
with that spirit of truth and wisdom, without which 
no divine knowledge can be attained. It tells the 
Christian child doctrines which it was the highest 
aim of the heathen philosopher to reach with all the 
efforts of his mind. Aristotle and Plato knew no 
higher objects of thought than the very questions 
contained in the purely doctrinal articles of the 
Christian creed, — such as the nature of the supreme 
God. Instead of setting them aside, as vain and 
idle speculations, they deemed them absolutely ne- 
cessary to the happiness and perfection of man. 
And as for supposing that you could teach the 
duties of religion, or the history of God's dealings, 
without also teaching the abstract character of his 
attributes, they would as soon have dreamed of 
teaching a man morals by telling him how to act in 
such particular circumstances, without giving him 
any thing of the general distinction between right 

D D 



302 ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 

and wrong. Therefore the abstract doctrinal truths 
of the creed are as much an essential part of the 
knowledge required in religion as its mere facts. 

I omit here the consideration (the true consider- 
ation, indeed, by which the question must be de- 
cided by any rational being), that both alike are 
revealed by God, and imposed on us by his minis- 
ters ; and man is not to believe, or distinguish, 
or prefer, or exclude, any part in a whole which 
comes from Him. I omit also, that God himself has 
shewn an especial preference for the high doctrinal 
truths of revelation. The unity of the divine nature 
is the first commandment in the law. The acknow- 
ledgment of our Lord as the Son of God is the rock 
on which Christ himself declared that he would 
build his Church. 

To this it might be added, but that it is difficult 
to explain clearly without a long metaphysical state- 
ment, that the perception of the most common facts 
depends upon the awakening in the mind of certain 
very high abstract conceptions, above and beyond 
all the truths of any particular science ; and which 
Aristotle recognises in his Rhetoric under the name 
of commonplaces, To7roi, or common forms, under 
which all sciences are reducible. What is possible 
and impossible, greater and less, past and future, 
the notions of space and time, the general ideas of 
relations, — all these, which are in fact the very 
highest subjects of metaphysics, must be called up 
in every mind, however incapable it may be of ex- 
pressing them, before it can form the slightest 
judgment, or carry on any reasoning. They may 
sound abstract and mysterious in language, but in 
fact they exist in every mind as the very first ele- 
ments of thought. They are not derived from ex- 
perience, though awakened by it ; but are implanted 
by another hand — are the result of intuition. And 



CH. XXI.] ANALOGY OF INSTRUCTION. 303 

they bear a close analogy to those high abstract 
doctrines of theology, which the Christian student 
learns as the foundation of all his religion. What 
are we to say to a scheme of education framed ex- 
pressly upon the principle of omitting them — which 
would profess to make men Christians, teaching 
them the duties of Christians, without specifying 
the nature of the Being to whom those duties are 
directed — and the acts of that Being, without the 
attributes from which they emanated ? And yet 
such is the plan contemplated by the new system of 
national education, and accepted by the nineteenth 
century as the most valued and wise discovery of 
modern enlightenment. 



304 USE OF DOCTRINAL THEOLOGY. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

But besides those who would exclude from edu- 
cation what they term the metaphysical doctrines 
of the creeds, there are others who would exclude 
all creeds and catechisms together, as having no 
connexion with the intellectual formation of man. 
" I do not ask my physician/' they say, "if he be 
a Romanist or a Presbyterian. I can study zoology 
without examining the thirty-nine articles. A Ma- 
hometan may be as good a botanist, even as good a 
politician, as a Christian. Why make a religious 
creed the basis of all your instruction, and refuse to 
instruct any who will not engage to conform to it?" 
This is the great question debated in the present 
day. Now the Church, in requiring from all who 
are baptised their belief in a certain religious creed, 
does certainly recognise a very opposite principle. 
She asserts, at the very least, that man cannot dis- 
charge the engagement into which he then enters 
with God, without knowing the nature of God ; and 
that consequently a creed is necessary for all those 
actions, which he is to perform as a part of his en- 
gagement. If he is to serve God, please him, honour 
him, praise him, thank him, contribute to his glory, 
fulfil his will, and bring others into obedience to 
him, he must first know what God is. And here is 
at once the answer to the question. He who be- 
lieves that all the operations of man, of his intellect 
as well as of his heart, are parts of his duty to his 
Maker — that none are excepted — that when he 
is studying mathematics, or teaching grammar, or 



CH. XXII.] NATURE OF THE INTELLECT. 306 

manufacturing cotton, or excavating mines, or in- 
venting steam-engines, still these are the acts of 
a reasoning being, and must be guided by a will, 
and directed to an end, and be pregnant with moral 
influences of good or of evil, and therefore that he 
is responsible for them as much as for actions more 
obviously moral, — he who believes this will never 
think of asking why the learning of a creed is ne- 
cessary to the student of grammar — why the depths 
of physical, or of any science, cannot be safely en- 
tered, without we carry in our hands the safety- 
lamp of religious doctrine. But the fact is, that 
men in the present day know nothing of the nature 
of the human intellect. They have materialised it 
with" Locke, dissected it with the Scotch writers, 
converted it into a machine with a still worse school, 
until they have completely bewildered both them- 
selves and others ; and by one common confession, 
the science of the education of the intellect, which 
is all that I am at present considering, is become 
what the science of human nature would become, if 
none but the anatomist, with a piece of a muscle in 
one hand, and the fragment of a rib in another, 
were permitted to give an account of it. 

Two capital blunders they have committed ; and 
until another generation has rectified them, nothing 
can be done to improve our present wretched system 
of instruction. 

First, they have completely forgotten that the 
working of the human intellect depends on two 
distinct things ; one, a system of mechanical laws, 
by which associated ideas come into the mind, pass 
through it, combine together, and throw out con- 
clusions and impressions, just as a steam printing- 
press tosses out the sheets as they are printed ; — the 
other, a power entirely distinct from this machinery ; 
one which stands by, puts it in motion, stops it, 
d d 2 



306 MECHANICAL PART, 

watches it, takes up the papers it throws out, exa- 
mines, rejects, or approves them, and without which 
the whole machine will either come to a stand- still, 
or explode in the air. Let us remember that at 
least once in every twenty-four hours this machine 
of our intellect, for six or seven hours together, 
either stands still or goes mad. Have the goodness, 
to close your eyes, throw yourself back in your 
chair, and probably in a few minutes, I — this little 
book — shall drop from your hands, and you will be- 
come a lunatic. You will have visions floating be- 
fore you, which have no more reality than the spec- 
tres which haunt the monomaniac, but which you will 
believe to be real as firmly as he believes in his own. 
You will talk, but your words will be a mass of in- 
coherences. You will reason, but every law of logic 
will be violated in your syllogisms ; and yet you will 
believe them all. The dead will rise up before you 
— animals will talk — trees fly — space and time be 
annihilated — you yourself turn into a stone, or a 
whale, or a heathen god, or a Roman philosopher, 
and you will not be surprised at it. You will cry 
without anything to cry for ; delight in that which 
when you are awake, will make you shudder ; commit 
the most horrible crimes without fear or shame ; — 
in one word, be a madman. The whole earth, every 
night about twelve o'clock, becomes a vast lunatic 
asylum — with one providential precaution, that the 
same power which lets loose our minds, ties down 
our feet and hands, If you ask how this takes 
place, I answer, that it is by the mechanism of the 
intellect — that very mechanism to which modern 
philosophy (shame on the day which permits such 
an abuse of such a word !) would reduce it wholly. 
There is a train of past associations, moving on, and 
linked into each other by innumerable unseen fila- 
ments ; and there are animal movements also going 



CH. XXII.] MORAL PART. 307 

on at the same time in the heart, the lungs, and 
especially the stomach, and producing impressions 
on the internal nerves, and they convey them to the 
brain. And from the collisions, crossings, and com- 
binations of these two trains, under no other guid- 
ance upon the railroad of human consciousness, there 
arises that terrible crash and confusion which we 
call madness and dreaming. 

And now, is it necessary to add, that the intellect 
is not merely mechanism, but that some other power 
is requisite, and in man's lucid intervals exists in 
him to control it ? And what is the nature of this 
power ? It is, remember, not intellectual merely, 
but moral ; not merely a second intellectual machine 
put on to rectify the aberrations of the former, 
as Mr. Babbage inserts in his calculating engine 
.another engine to proclaim its faults. But it is a 
hearty, earnest, patient, self- subduing, hopeful, af- 
fectionate, honest, rejoicing spirit, which has a moral 
end in view, and judges the movements of the intel- 
lectual machine by the qualities of good and evil, 
as well as by true and false ; and distrusts it, fears 
it, loves it, bears with it, stops it, or sets it going, 
according to a law of God written in the heart ; and 
endures, manfully and heroically, the pain of watch- 
ing it ; and denies itself sleep and rest, and the plea- 
sure of anticipating results, and the luxury of suc- 
cess, and the triumph of fame, rather than allow one 
error. Without this, the intellect of man is indeed 
a machine. In the day-time, indeed, it may work 
with fewer explosions and less blunders than in the 
dark when we sleep ; because then, the senses being 
open, there comes in another train of impressions, 
uniform and permanent, from the objects which 
meet the eye, and these materially control and 
steady, and sometimes almost entirely overpower 
the movements of the other trains ; so that men, 



308 MORAL PAUT. 

though really at the mercy of these mechanical and 
external impulses, manage to pass through life with- 
out any very formidable collisions ; as madmen may 
be kept in check, and even be allowed to mix with 
society, under the eye of a keeper. But without the 
moral principle, the very highest productions of the 
human intellect — poetry, mathematical calculations, 
theories of philosophy, inventions of art — are just 
as much the result of circumstances, mechanical, 
destitute of merit, even in their best forms, or as 
much the work of chance, as a piece of cotton which 
comes out of a mill. You have no security what- 
ever for the machine working well. Change of place 
may remove the fly-wheel ; change of temperature 
disturb the nervous action of the body ; casualties 
string together the association of ideas in this or that 
series ; accident again bring the three to bear upon 
each other in one way or another, — but the result 
is the work of chance ; meaning by chance that 
coincidence of the general laws of Providence into 
which man cannot penetrate, and which deprives 
him of all power of foresight and moral government 
in his actions. 

And this moral power, I say, is precisely the 
same as that which is the spring of actions more 
peculiarly called moral. That which gives man real 
spontaneity, real energy, real faith, love to God, 
zeal in his service — which takes him out of the 
slavery of the body and its lusts — this same power 
also enables him to superintend and regulate the 
movements of his intellect. The working with the 
intellect is as much an action as the working with 
the hands, or the tongue, or the feet : it is as much 
under the control of the will, as much the subject of 
moral responsibility. All alike, to be good, must 
be placed under the control of a moral principle, or 
what Bishop Butler calls "the principle of virtue." All 



CH. XXII.] THEOLOGY THE MOTHER OF SCIENCE. 309 

alike, without this, are bad, or at least are worthless. 
And the Church gives us this power, this principle 
of virtue, for our head as well as for our heart — 
to " govern our thoughts as well as our deeds" — in 
Baptism, by implanting in us the gift of the Holy 
Spirit ; and with this gift it couples necessarily the 
knowledge of God. It is an essential part of it. 
And the knowledge of God, or the creed of religion, 
is as much essential to the regulation of man's in- 
tellectual processes in every branch as it is to the 
performance of his moral duties. 

And how it is essential, we shall see presently. 

But there is also another reason why a creed re- 
lating to the nature of God is a necessary element 
in the education of the intellect : it comprehends a 
class of facts intimately connected with every other 
branch of facts belonging to every other separate 
science. It is the trunk, indeed, from which these 
others ramify. Theology is the root and mother of 
all knowledge. Once before we have observed, that 
the ignorance of the present age in this country 
looks upon the several departments of science as 
perfectly distinct — as if they each sprung from a 
root of their own. The evil tendencies of the day 
have heaped up a mass of rubbish round the parent 
stem, and every bough is thought to be a tree. It 
was not so of old. Let us endeavour to clear away 
the rubbish, and lay bare the truth. And, remem- 
ber, this is no new doctrine ; it is the old declara- 
tion of the Catholic Church ; it is the fundamental 
maxim still retained in her great schools of educa- 
tion. And it is asserted just as expressly by the 
profoundest of merely human philosophers — by 
Plato himself. 

Let us remember, then, the point to be proved. 
We have seen that the work of education must com- 
mence in the intellect of man, and in that faculty of 



310 THEOLOGY THE MOTHER OF SCIENCE. 

his intellect by which he embraces and becomes pos- 
sessed of fundamental indemonstrable truths. And 
the Church recognises this fact, and begins by giv- 
ing him a theological creed. And this theological 
creed is, I say, essential to his proper attainment of 
all other knowledge ; first, as I have shewn already, 
because this attainment must require a moral active 
principle within him, which, as I shall shew pre- 
sently, cannot be secured without a knowledge of 
God as he is ; and, secondly, as I now propose to 
shew, because the facts themselves of theology are 
inseparably connected with those of all other 
sciences. 

The sciences, then, are divided, according to 
their subjects, into two grand classes, — those which 
relate to matter, and those which relate to mind 
Botany, geometry, mathematics, astronomy, zoology, 
belong to the former ; morals, politics, poetry, with 
all the fine arts appealing to the imagination, poli- 
tical economy so far as it relates to the impulses of 
human avarice and wants, jurisprudence, philology, 
and theology, belong to the latter, because the ulti- 
mate fundamental facts in them are all facts of mind, 
not of matter. Now, in each of these departments, 
Nature has thrown before the eye of man a vast 
seeming chaos of separate facts. All the variety of 
the animal world before the zoologist — the infinite 
multitude of plants before the botanist — the con- 
fused stratification of rocks, with their innumerable 
fossils, before the geologist — all the workings of 
human nature, like a tangled many-coloured web, 
before the moralist — history, with its facts and phe- 
nomena, thrown together, yet apart, like particles of 
sand on the sea-shore, to be sorted and connected 
by the politician. Now, what is the work of the in- 
tellect when placed before these unarranged atoms 
of facts ? It is, to do that which the Spirit of God 



CH. XXII.J THEOLOGY THE MOTHER OF SCIENCE. 31 1 

did for the chaos of matter, and which the same 
Spirit in the Word of Gcd, the \dyor, does for the 
wild, turbulent, distracted chaos of human ideas and 
passions — reduce them into order. To do this, it 
must discover among them, what Nature has un- 
doubtedly placed in them, though at first not ex- 
posed to view, the general laws by which they are 
produced, the general forms into which they are 
cast. Confused as they seem, they are in reality- 
arranged upon a plan — there was an end to be an- 
swered by their position. Nothing created or per- 
mitted by an almighty and all- wise Being can be 
without its design. A man unskilled in music listens 
to some great composer ; he hears nothing but a 
rude succession of discordant sounds. But the mas- 
ter-hand had arranged these sounds designedly ; he 
had an object in view, some idea to realise. To do 
this, he threw them into a certain form ; and when 
we have learned his object, and understood the mode 
in which he purposed to effect it, we shall under- 
stand his music. A geologist travels over England. 
He sees chalk and gravel, clay and granite, lime- 
stone and coal formations, huddled as it were to- 
gether. He examines them, discovers that they 
occur in groups, in one regular uniform order ; in 
other words, traces out the form or figure of their 
arrangements ; and geology becomes a science. So, 
to the ignorant boy, language is a chaos of words. 
The scholar discerns the forms of it, the laws by 
which it is inflected, the rules to be observed in 
the arrangement of letters and syllables, words and 
sentences ; and grammar becomes a science. It is, 
to use the language of Plato, the whole business of 
man's intellect to discover the forms or Qsou, or, as 
we usually say, the general laws of things. 

And remember that the whole value of know- 
ledge lies in these forms. What is history, as a bare 



312 SCIENCE OF LAWS. 

register of chronicles, without philosophy to explain 
them ? What are chemical facts, without chemical 
laws ? What the use of separate words, without the 
rules of grammar ? What are the limbs of the body, 
omitting the order in which they are arranged ? 
What is the knowledge of the numbers, " one, two, 
three, four," without a knowledge of the laws which 
regulate their combination and relation to each 
other ? that twice two make four ; one and two 
three ; two taken from three leave one ; and the 
like. What is the use of having a medicine, and 
seeing a sick man, unless we know the law by which 
the medicine will affect the man? 

The same truth may be stated in another shape. 
Every form or figure implies at least two lines, 
and a space between them. Every law also implies 
at least three things, — one body to act, another to 
be acted on, and the change which takes place in 
consequence. It is a general law that heat melts 
ice, and cold hardens water. Here is the heat, one ; 
the ice, two ; and the liquefaction, or form into 
which the ice is thrown by the action of the heat, 
three. The cold, one ; the water, two ; and the hard 
form which the water assumes, three. Arsenic, one; 
a living body, two ; and the death which takes place 
on their union, three. Now, to state this general 
law, is only to declare a certain relation which ex- 
ists between two bodies under certain circumstances. 
And thus the business of the human intellect will be. 
to discover the real relations of things. Or, again, 
it may be described as the discovery of the causes 
of things, and their effects. These different expres- 
sions mean one and the same process ; and wisdom 
has usually been defined under one or other of these 
descriptions — as the knowledge of forms, by Plato, 
or of causes, by Aristotle ; or of relations, by Clarke; 
or of general laws, by Bacon. But all motion im- 



CH. XXII.] TYPICAL CHARACTER OF CREATION. 313 

plies an impelling power, all change a cause ; and 
the human understanding traces up power beyond 
power, cause above cause, till the chain terminates 
at last, as it must terminate, in one great Power, the 
Cause and Lord of all things. All things, then, 
whatever, must have proceeded from God. 

And now think, what is the relation which, both 
from our own mind we should anticipate, and from 
experience we find to exist, between a creation and 
its Creator. Is it probable that there will be any 
resemblance between them ; any such resemblance, 
as that the knowledge of the one shall be a key to 
the cipher of the other? Yes, answers human phi- 
losophy, and especially modern science ; for, by the 
knowledge of the creature, you may ascend to a 
knowledge of the Creator. Study the world around 
you, and it will teach you the nature of God. You 
may read his will, and wisdom, and attributes — 
what he likes, what he dislikes — in all around you. 
The whole world is a vast temple covered with 
divine hieroglyphics. It is to its Maker what the 
body is to the soul — a visible form revealing an in- 
visible spirit. So the spirit of man developes itself 
in a creation of matter. It is a centre unseen, un- 
touched, beyond all depth of sense : of which we 
know nothing, but that it is the source and well- 
spring of life, and thought, and action. And when 
it first begins to act, it gathers round itself, upon a 
model of its own, an embryo of matter; and from 
thence spreads into an organised frame, and assumes 
shape after shape, as its external circumstances re- 
quire, till it comes forth into light ; and then it ex- 
pands into a full-formed human frame, and gathers 
round it still a larger orb of matter, which also it 
fashions and bends to its own will — its dress, house, 
property, servants, dependents, and all that vast 
circle of human beings, small or great, which hang 

E E 



314 TYPICAL CHARACTER OF CREATION. 

round every individual, as the atoms hang round the 
centre of gravitation — and still its creative power 
proceeds onwards, embodying itself in children, who 
carry on the primitive type of their parent, and be- 
come fresh centres to fresh concentric circles ; and 
in works of art, which transmit the same impression 
through successive generations ; and in language, 
which enables him to project the image of his mind 
beyond the range of the eye ; and in written words, 
which carry it beyond the range of the ear, and 
triumph over the obstacles of space ; and then in 
printed symbols, by which he multiplies the copies 
to infinity, and preserves them against the destruc- 
tion of time ; and then he conquers the differences 
of race, and forms a common language, as Greek 
was formed for Christianity, and Latin was main- 
tained by popery ; and thus the soul of man realises 
the work of creation, and expands from a single 
point into a vast sphere and atmosphere of power. 
And every part of this is an expansion and copy of 
itself In every stage it is the inner man magnified, 
and developed, and made visible. And so, with re- 
verence be it spoken, we may and must conceive, 
(and God himself has no where otherwise declared 
it,) that "the invisible things of God are manifested 
by the things that are made" (Romans i. 20); that 
even where he has permitted evil to intrude and de- 
face his work, we may read his long-suffering, his 
mercy, his love of a reasonable and free-will service, 
and of a creature perfected by suffering, rather than 
of an indolent and mechanical subjection to an ex- 
ternal influence. 

It is not Pantheism to say that all things come 
from God, and bear the type and stamp of his nature. 
In this sense Christianity is Pantheism : and Pan- 
theism is true. But Pantheism refuses to acknow- 
ledge the separate existence of evil, as a permitted 



CII. XXII.] NATURAL THEOLOGY. 31<3 

antagonist to God in this present world — and here 
it is false. 

And now, can you trace the connexion between 
an abstract, and, if yon please, a metaphysical doc- 
trine respecting the Divine Being, and the general 
laws of Nature which human science professes to in- 
vestigate ? Are they probably like to each other ? 
May not the laws be only repetitions and varied ex- 
pressions of one grand primary truth, as every leaf 
is only a new exemplification of the general type of 
the whole tree ? And, therefore, may not this pri- 
mary truth be a key, and the easiest key, to the ge- 
neral laws ? May it not be easier to learn nature 
from theology than theology from nature — to de- 
scend rather than to ascend — to make, as we have 
so often before remarked, — to make our study of 
truth rather the deduction of received principles to 
particular facts than the induction of the principles 
from the facts. 

Think, in the first place, if, with all our study of 
Nature, all our boasted attempts to erect a natural 
theology, we have been able to make any progress. 
Compare the full creed of the Church, which w r e 
know to be true, with the meagre, mutilated, in- 
consistent Deism, extracted from human philosophy. 
Scarcely the foundations of the building are laid ; 
and the moment a hand attempts to raise any higher 
superstructure, it tumbles down. Compare the arts 
of the present age, and of the age in which theology 
was recognised as the " Queen and Mother of the 
Sciences." This is no place to enter into such a 
vast inquiry; but take our painting, our architec- 
ture, our sculpture, even our mechanical powers, 
our chemical discoveries, our agriculture, our poli- 
tical theories — contrast them with those of a reli- 
gious age, and you must confess that, with all our 
boasted improvement, we are what the Greeks were 



316 USe OF THEORY. 

declared by the Egyptians to be, " mere children." 
Whatever discoveries have been made in that ma- 
chinery which is our chief boast, have been made 
by common workmen, by accident. It is a noto- 
rious fact. Scarcely any thing has been done in 
the present day for the real advance of science by 
speculative men. 

And then revert to a remark made before. Re- 
call the real process of discovery — that it is made 
by a general principle, or theory, suggesting itself 
to the mind of the observer as a theory, and then 
the observer proceeds to examine facts, in order to 
confirm or refute it. Without the theory previously 
existing as a problem, the " interrogation of Nature 
by experiment" is as useless, as it is to receive an- 
swers when we put no questions, or to put questions 
when we have no doubts. And all the greatest disco- 
veries of speculative men have been made by their first 
taking some theory, of a very high and general nature, 
closely connected with the nature of Almighty God. 
Newton, for instance, was impressed with the deep 
belief in the unity of the Divine Being; hence in 
the uniformity of his works — hence in the confor- 
mity of the laws of motion wherever motion was 
seen — and thus his discovery was made. The same 
line of thought would suggest the undulatory theory 
of light; the whole theory of vegetable bodies as 
analogical to those of animals ; the identity of elec- 
tricity and lightning ; the application of steam to na- 
vigation ; the discovery of the New World. The very 
principle of analogy, from which, perhaps, all these 
primary suggestions proceed, is based on the theo- 
logical doctrine of the one will and one reason 
of one Creating Spirit, carrying on all the opera- 
tions of the world under one, or similar laws. Take 
away this doctrine, and all the inferences deduced 
from it by the anticipations of the philosopher fall 



CH. XXII.] APPLICATION OF THEOLOGY. 317 

to the ground ; and with them all the inquiries and 
all the discoveries to which the inquiries have led. 
As a matter of fact, then, even physical science is 
based upon a principle of theology. Neither can it 
proceed a step without another form of the same 
principle ; for when its laws are once observed, it 
still remains to guarantee their continuance. And 
how can this be done, without assuming that the 
Author of Nature is " without variableness or the 
shadow of turning ;" that he will still uphold the 
system which he has made, and not delude the ex- 
pectations of his creatures ? 

Even these considerations might suggest a doubt 
as to the correctness of the prevailing separation be- 
tween a revealed theology and natural science, be- 
tween the Athanasian creed and the discoveries of 
our human philosophy even in the world of matter. 
And if even here, how much more in the spiritual 
world — in all that proceeds from that mind of man, 
which we know to have been made in the image of 
God, and to be an emanation from his own breath 
of life. 

It would be a large enquiry to illustrate this gene- 
rally by instances ; but a few may awaken curiosity. 
And in tracing how even the great mysteries of the 
gospel may assist in such an inferior work as the 
prosecution of human science, let us not be charged 
with irreverence. Even the material world is holy 
and noble as the work of God. The light of the 
dimmest taper is kindled originally at the sun. 

And I take the physical sciences chiefly, because 
if the position is true here, it must be true every 
where. 

It was, then, the doctrine of the unity of the 
Divine Being which led to the truest ancient astro- 
nomy ; suggesting the belief that the heavenly bodies 
were formed into one regular system, were them- 
e e 2 



318 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE. 

selves globular, and revolved in circular orbits ; for 
in this form only could men discern in space and 
matter a type of unity and infinity. And if, be- 
sides this doctrine of the unity of the Author of 
good, they had known any thing of an author of evil 
being permitted to disturb the universe at present, 
and yet of his final subjugation, — " He shall bruise 
thy heel, and thou shalt bruise his head," — it might 
not have been left for modern astronomers to dis- 
cover that the mechanism of the heavens was full of 
disturbing influences — that none of its movements 
were perfectly regular — and yet that those disturb- 
ing forces were so balanced as to preserve the whole 
system in safety. 

It was the same doctrine of the unity, exclusive 
of all plurality, and of the purely spiritual nature of 
God, unconnected, as Christianity connects it, with 
the doctrine of the Incarnation, which, in the East, 
crushed all science whatever ; leading men to look 
on the changes of the physical world as mere illu- 
sive phenomena, without reality, and on matter as 
the unmixed seat of evil, from which man was bound 
wholly to detach himself. 

It was the want of a knowledge of some infinite 
good Being, in whose eternity and omnipotence 
man's mind and heart might find a refuge from the 
miseries and distractions of the world, which com- 
pelled the highest Greek philosophy to throw all its 
energies into purely metaphysical speculations, leav- 
ing the natural world unexplored, as being incapable 
of supplying any certainty and truth. And the re- 
gular, industrious study of Nature in all its branches 
will be found generally accompanied with such a 
faith ; just as a swarm of bees pursue each their 
own task steadily and quietly, so long as the queen 
is safe. Let her be lost, and all is restlessness and 
confusion until another is found. 



Cli. XXIT.] THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE. 319 

Again, it is the boast of the professors of mo- 
dern chemistry that they have discovered — what? 
That the atoms of bodies combine together in cer- 
tain numerical proportions — say 2 to 4, 3 to 9, and 
the like — and on these proportions, or numbers, de- 
pend the whole qualities and action of chemical 
bodies. It is, they say, a discovery of experiment. 
But Pythagoras had declared it many centuries back. 
His theory, so long scoffed at as the very ideal of 
empty speculation, that the world was formed by 
" numbers,' ' is only the modern theory, but deduced 
from a different source ; not merely from a meta- 
physical analysis of ideas of relation, which, how- 
ever, would easily bring him to the same truth, but 
from ancient traditions of a revelation, which invested 
numbers with a mysterious character, and traced up 
their various combinations to one primitive root — 
the number three, and that to a still prior root of 
unity, which, nevertheless, could not be conceived to 
exist without the other. " You cannot," says Plato, 
"have the idea of one thing, without the notion of 
three things also. The thing itself, another thing 
which is not it, and a third thing between them ; 
for if there were nothing between, they would be one, 
not two. Xeither can you see two things, and some- 
thing between them, that is, see in the whole three 
things, without conceiving of them as one — for the 
third thing connects and binds together the two ex- 
tremes." Upon this fundamental problem, Plato 
and Pythagoras built their theories. By the same 
mystery enunciated in revelation, the ancient Fathers 
used to interpret the innumerable passages in Scrip- 
ture where numbers are introduced, in a mode which 
must strike the most superficial reader with sur- 
prise, and rouse him to discover some deeper mean- 
ing. And perhaps the book of Nature may be like 
the book of the Gospel, and contain a whole world 
of enigmas, only to be opened by this key. All the 



320 THEOLOGY AND SCIEXCE. 

" forms," the tSsa» of things, thought Plato, are to be 
reduced into this one — are types and representations 
af a Trinity in Unity, and of an Unity in Trinity, 
and this one is the " form " of the supreme good, of 
God himself. 

Again, is there no connexion between Socini- 
anism and Materialism ? Should we have had men 
by means of science endeavouring to convert human 
nature into a mass of bones, and flesh, and blood, 
and nothing else ; perplexed with the inscrutable 
problem of the union of body and soul, and strug- 
gling to escape from it by turning soul into body, 
or body into soul ; and astounding even ther fellow- 
mortals by the grossness of their blunders, — if they 
had kept before them the one true type of man — 
may the words be used with reverence ! — " Perfect 
God, and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and 
human flesh subsisting?" 

Once more, before w r e leave the ground of these 
deep and inscrutable mysteries. It is a common 
lamentation of modern days, that nearly all the 
energy and thought of the middle ages was con- 
sumed in a barren and useless logic. The effect, 
indeed, of Aristotle's logic upon man is one of the 
most remarkable phenomena in his history. Ac- 
cording to its modern objectors, it palsied all true 
activity of mind, blocked up the avenues to truth, 
threw a veil over the laws of Nature, and plunged 
the whole w r orld in darkness. Much of this is un- 
doubtedly true. But what has been the course of 
physical science, especially of botany, mineralogy, 
and zoology, since then ? Undoubtedly many new 
facts have been evolved, and recorded. But the 
great work of science — that of reducing all the phe- 
nomena beneath us into one consistent uniform 
scheme — from this, without which the science is 
not a science, we are nearly as far as ever. Now, 
consider what has been the principle on which both 



CH. XXII.] THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE. 321 

logic and modern physical science have hitherto 
rested. They are both systems of classification. 
They both pretend to arrange all the subjects within 
their sphere into orders, species, genera, subordinat- 
ing them one to the other, throwing them into paral- 
lel columns, evolving, in fact, a tree with ramifying 
divisions, all springing from one trunk. And on 
what principle ? Because they conceive that such 
is the real plan of Nature, which their scientific ar- 
rangement is bound to discover and follow. They 
assume the fact of there being such a plan in the 
original construction of the world, by which, from 
one primary type or genus, all the infinite varities 
of subordinate classes are educed. Now in all their 
endeavours at classification upon this principle, it is 
well known they have failed. They have found it im- 
possible to arrange animals, and vegetables, and mine- 
rals, under any such form or iJea. But the syllogistic 
logic is also a system founded entirely on the same 
principle of classification. And logic has also failed. 
No one can study it deeply without being embarrassed 
with difficulties and inconsistencies, without finding 
that it is in a great degree inapplicable to a vast 
proportion of the subjects of thought. May it be 
that this plan, so boldly assumed by human reason, 
delighting as it does in strict order, unity, and pre- 
cision — that this is not the plan of Nature ; that the 
infinite variety of objects around us are not evolved 
like the ramification of a tree, but formed, as a re- 
cent theory has just ventured to suggest, in what is 
called a circular arrangement — classes entering into 
classes, one within the other, vegetable, and animal, 
and mineral life, all distinct, yet all blended with 
each other, so that it is impossible to draw the line 
between them ; the highest function of one species 
passing into the lowest of another ; and the whole 
chain of being not drawn out into ramifying series, 



322 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE. 

but coiled up into a variety of circumvolutions, in 
which no one can say that the first does not enter 
into the second, nor the second into the third, nor 
the third into all. This is a new theory of natural 
history, which has been recently brought forward, 
with every probability of its being true ; and with 
this must necessarily follow a modification of the 
process of syllogism. 

But the maintainers of the old theories might 
have remembered that the form, or $sa, which they 
conceived to exist in Nature, was the mere creature 
of their own fancy ; that it did not correspond with 
the form, or lYta, of the Divine Nature, as laid down 
by the Church. The very name of " circulation," 
adopted by the new theory, will recall to those who 
are familiar with theology, the name given to the 
true catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity, when it 
became necessary to state it formally, in order to 
contradict the very same principle of classification 
and subordination, which a speculative, logical, ma- 
terialising Arianism endeavoured to introduce. It 
was called the doctrine of circulation, Trsptp^p^ir, 
circumincessio. And I know not how to state it 
more clearly than in the mysterious words of our 
Lord himself, when he says, " I am in the Father, 
and the Father in me" (John xiv. 10). And again, 
"lam in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." 
And again, " That they may be one, even as we are 
one : I in them, and thou in me, that they may be 
made perfect in one" (John xvii. 23). It is pain- 
ful and difficult to bring down such solemn words 
to such an application. But all that God has framed 
is divine. And if all be a shadow and revelation of 
himself, even brute matter may bear on it an in- 
scription recording the mysteries of his nature. 

Let us be assured, if we would discover truth, 
we must read the lowest by the light of the highest ; 



CII. XXII.] THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE. 323 

not, as we now think, the highest by the lowest. All 
the prophecies, and types, and facts of the Mosaic 
dispensation were unintelligible to the Jews ; they 
are unintelligible to us, until we throw on them the 
broad sunlight of the Gospel. Read the Epistles by 
the help of the Creeds, the Gospels by the Epistles, 
the Prophets by the Gospels, the Law by the Pro- 
phets, and all is clear. Begin with the book of 
Genesis, and study upwards, and who has not been 
bewildered and lost. 

And I will close these short illustrations on the 
aid which might be given to all human sciences by 
the doctrinal truths of Christianity, with some few 
other instances, which I am well aware will appear 
most strange, and fanciful, and far-fetched : but which 
to those who believe, with Plato, that all forms of 
being whatever have their parent archetypal form in 
a region far above, and who are accustomed, with 
the Catholic Church, and with the wisest men of 
Christian antiquity, to read deep mysteries in little 
signs, will not be without their significance. 

I believe, then, that a geologist, deeply impressed 
with the mystery of baptism — that mystery by which 
a " new creature," xecm xrio-ir, is formed by means of 
" water and fire" — would never have fallen into the 
absurdities of accounting for the formation of the 
globe solely by water, or solely by fire. He would 
not have maintained either a Vulcanian or a Nep- 
tunian theory. He would have suspected, as most 
men now suspect, that the truth lay in the union of 
both. And in conceiving a typical connexion be- 
tween the material earth and the spiritual Church, 
he would have been justified by the whole tenor of 
Scripture. 

I believe that a spiritualised eye, seeing all the 
human race shut up in the person of our Lord, hav- 
ing before it always the figure in which it pleased 



324 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE. 

Almighty God to place him before us on the cross, 
might expect to find a similar figure — the figure of 
the cross — placed here and there all over the work 
of creation ; as a religious spirit in better days than 
the present erected that cross on high, wherever a 
human foot might be arrested by it ; and as the 
ancient fathers detected it in the most hidden allu- 
sions of Scripture : Moses stretching out his hands 
to the Amalekites — his rod — the branch which he 
threw into the bitter waters — the wood of the ark 
— the tree of life. In every animal and material 
nature he would expect to discern the figure of a 
cross ; and he would not be surprised to find that 
all mathematical figures were reducible to this ele- 
ment ; or, as modern anatomists have suggested, that 
the whole animal world is framed upon this type — 
a central column with lateral processes. It is one 
of the grand speculations of zoological science. 

Neither, I think, would a man who weighed care- 
fully the mysterious title of the Word, or \6yog, given 
to our Lord, permit himself to dream of language 
being an invention of man, a dead set of arbitrary 
symbols, mere sound without a corresponding spirit. 
He would look on it with the deepest reverence. He 
would never have fallen into those philological ab- 
surdities, which, by a secret sympathy, have always 
accompanied a materialising atheistic philosophy. 

Neither should we have been deluged with so 
many idle theories of creation out of unity — creation 
of the world out of atoms — of societies out of indi- 
viduals — of language out of inarticulate sounds — of 
matter out of spirit, as in the Oriental philosophy — 
or of spirit out of matter, as in modern European 
schools ; nor of arts and sciences out of insulated ex- 
periment, without antecedent revelation ; if men had 
deduced the law of creation from the facts of the crea- 
tion of the Church and from the nature of the Creator, 



CU. XXII.] THEOLOGY THE MOTHER OF SCIENCES. 32<3 

and had remembered that that Creator is not merely 
one God, but " Three Persons in one substance." 

So also it is a question of statistics, of infinite 
importance at this time, what proportion of the 
property of the country is necessary to maintain the 
poor, the clergy and the temples of God. The 
table of the House of Commons is loaded every 
session with speculations and plans on this subject. 
Would it be fanciful to spppose that a tenth might 
probably be the amount ? such a sum at the very 
least having been fixed and demanded by God him- 
self. And may not all the fearful embarrassments 
arising from the irregular distribution of our wealth 
be attributable to this simple" fact, that we have for- 
gotten the doctrine of revelation on this subject, and 
not yet struck out a better from all our political 
economy ? 

The French Revolutionists felt that some pro- 
portion of rest was necessary for man. Ten is a 
convenient number, and they fixed one day in ten. 
They were compelled to return to a seventh, because 
human nature, it was found, could not labour for a 
longer time together. 

You want a model to explain the organization of 
the human body, or the theory of vegetation. In 
each we can only see a part ; there are mysteries 
which evade inquiry ; facts for which we can assign 
no reason. Have we not near us a body and a 
tree full formed, with all its organs more perfectly 
developed, written, as Plato would express it, in 
larger letters, and of which we know that both 
man's body and the tree are but the types and sym- 
bols ? Should we have had so many empty specu- 
lations on the seat of life ; so many attempts to as- 
certain the nature of the vital principle itself; so 
many false theories of generation and growth, of 
animal spirits, of the functions of the nerves, of their 

F F 



326 THEOLOGY THE MOTHER OF SCIENCES. 

connexion with the brain, of the use or uselessness 
of separate organs — if a perfect ecclesiastical polity, 
modelled " after the pattern seen on the mount," 
were traced out, with its unseen vital spirit animating 
every part — giving sight to the eyes, hearing to the 
ear, feeling to the senses ; secreting and distributing 
its various spiritual gifts ; "supplying every joint;" 
connecting every member by one common organ of 
feeling and of motion ; imbibing hourly the mate- 
rials from which its bulk is increased, and secretly 
carrying on the process by which the good is pre- 
served and the bad rejected ; multiplying itself not 
by atoms, but by slips and seeds containing a cer- 
tain portion of the organisation of the parent stock ; 
decaying, and ultimately dying, and yet even then 
destined to become a tabernacle and abode of spirit? 
All this, I am well aware, will sound fanciful 
and mystical. Fanciful it is, if it has no foundation 
in reality. Mystical it must be, if it be true. But 
he who cannot trace one grand and deep system of 
analogy running through the whole of creation from 
the top to the bottom, is wholly incapable of com- 
prehending it. He is unfit to look upon it. Until 
once more we are taught to read the book of the 
world in this way, it will remain to us a sealed 
volume. I am only contending for that process of 
taking known and universal principles to suggest 
explanations of things unknown, for which Newton 
is so much praised in astronomy — Goethe in his 
theory of colours and of the metamorphosis of 
plants — Harvey in the circulation of the blood — 
Niebuhr in his elucidation of ancient history — 
every great man in every great addition which he 
has made to the capital of human knowledge. But 
I do contend that the facts, placed in our hands by 
God himself, declaring his own attributes, the prin- 
ciples of his acting, the laws by which he has acted 



CH. XXII. J THEOLOGY THE MOTHER OF SCIENCES. 327 

in the most momentous of all his works, — that these 
are more likely to supply us with a key to the mys- 
teries of his creation than any invented by man — 
that theology is vitally connected with every branch 
of human knowledge ; confessedly with the sciences 
of spirit, — I add likewise with the sciences of 
matter. 



328 USE OF A CKEED. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

It is easy, as Bishop Butler has observed before, to 
foresee the scorn, with which suggestions like the 
foregoing must be received in a day like the pre- 
sent, when men have so generally lost sight of that 
deep philosophy, which binds all things in the uni- 
verse together by one pervading coherence, tracing 
little things in great, and great things in little, and 
reducing them all under high universal truths, with- 
out the possession of which the human intellect, ac- 
tively aroused, cannot be satisfied. But without 
recurring to this view of the value of a metaphysical 
creed relating to the Divine Being, and sanctioned 
by Himself, there is another view shorter, and per- 
haps more intelligible to common apprehensions. 
Man's mind is a percipient organ — percipient of 
ideas. In itself it seems nothing, not even to pos- 
sess consciousness. All its excellence depends on 
the truths which are written upon it. Like ab- 
stract matter, it is capable of receiving all forms, 
itself possessing none. And its excellence must de- 
pend on its assimilation to the nature of its Creator. 
Now God is the source and type of all good ; and 
nothing can be good which does not reflect his 
image. And unless this image be reflected ade- 
quately in the creature ; unless men and other spi- 
ritual beings form good conceptions of the attributes 
of God, God is not honoured by them. There is 
misrepresentation, falsity, error, blended with every 
act of religion, with every thought of God. We do 
not tolerate this ourselves in common life. That we 



CH. XXIII.] PROMISE OF BELIEF. 329 

should be mistaken, not appreciated sufficiently, 
even thought too highly of, is painful, and provokes 
resentment. It is as if a mirror, from some defect 
in the glass, did not reflect a correct image of the 
face. And wherever this mistake takes place, it 
prevents all union of mind with mind. Not to un- 
derstand each other, as it is termed, is the very ex- 
pression most common to explain the absence of 
cordial sympathy and friendship. And it must be 
so in the relations of man to his God. Instead of 
supposing, as men now dare to suppose, that God 
has left this fundamental knowledge to be picked 
out by each individual for himself, fashioned after 
his own corrupt fancy, distorted and confused, or 
thrown aside as an idle speculation ; he who knows 
the first want of human nature will rather expect to 
find that it is the grand basis of the whole scheme 
of revelation, as God himself has declared that it is 
the grand object of the creation of the world. Again 
and again the Scriptures speak of God, " who created 
all things by Jesus Christ ; to the intent that now 
unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places 
might be known by the Church the manifold wis- 
dom of God" (Ephes. iii. 9). The knowledge of the 
Creator is the first condition requisite to the being 
of the creature : " in it standeth his eternal life." 

And it is the first condition required by the 
Church in the rite of Baptism. The creed is re- 
peated, and the answer demanded, " All this I stead- 
fastly believe." 

Now, what is this pledge of believing thus ex- 
acted ? Few things seem so to perplex men's minds 
in the present day ; and it is of great importance 
that we should rightly comprehend it. Does it 
mean, then, I believe it on the testimony of my un- 
derstanding, that is, I can explain, perceive, the con- 
sistency of each part with general principles and the 

F F 2 



330 PKOMISE OF BELIEF. 

facts of experience ; I can prove them syllogistically ? 
Surely not. Where is even the philosopher who 
would venture to declare this ? How much less the 
peasant and the child ! Does it, again, imply that 
I will never doubt — that no difficulties shall arise in 
my mind, which I cannot solve ? Surely not ; for 
who could pledge himself to such a promise ? But 
it does imply, that we receive these truths on the 
authority of those who declare them to us ; that we 
believe their witness ; distrust ourselves ; are willing 
to submit ourselves to their guidance, recognise 
them in this point as our masters. The reasons why 
this is right, and the grounds of their authority, we 
may not know ; but it is sufficient that we acknow- 
ledge the authority ; and the rightfulness of its claims 
will be discerned afterwards. And this is the form 
in which all belief originates. It is a belief in men 
rather than in truths ; and a belief in men from an 
instinct which we have never yet analysed, and per- 
haps never may have occasion to prove to be con- 
sistent with reason, because rightly disposed hearts 
will never doubt it. A child believes all that he 
hears. Ask him, why ? He can only answer, that 
his father has told him. Ask him, why he believes 
his father ? He cannot tell ; he feels that it is his 
father who tells him, and that is enough to make 
him believe. And happy will his lot be, if no evil 
doubt rises up in after life, compelling him to find a 
reason for " the faith which is in him." 

And the promise that he will believe is — what ? 
How can any one "promise and vow" that he will 
maintain his conviction, in defiance of subsequent 
knowledge which may possibly be given ? Can he 
promise, that if his belief should be found inconsist- 
ent with facts, he will still believe it to be consistent 
—that when he sees two things unequal, he will per- 
sist in believing them equal ? No : but he can pro- 



CH. XXIII.] REJECTION OF DOUBTS. 331 

mise to do this, — to reject the doubt when it arises, 
to stand sentinel at the door of his heart, and prevent 
it from entering. He can turn away his thoughts 
to other things, close his eyes, avert his ears, as easily 
from a doubt of Christianity, as he does in every act 
of sin from the doubts which the Spirit of God sug- 
gests as to the goodness and prudence of his present 
conduct. So long as this is done his belief is safe ; 
for belief he has already. It was given to him in 
Baptism. He has been brought up beneath it ; as 
a child he never doubted. He has only to maintain 
what he possesses already, and to prevent it from 
being snatched from him. 

Hence it is that our Lord so repeatedly enjoins 
unhesitating faith. " Only believe ;" and he exhorts 
to belief as something in our power — he reproaches 
men for a failure in it ; because it is in our power 
to repel a doubt, as much as to guard against har- 
bouring an unclean or malicious thought. 

What, then, you will say, are we to close our eyes 
against the truth ? No, not against the truth, but 
against a doubt ; not against that which comes as 
a positive statement affirming some new fact, but 
against that which would overturn existing belief 
without substituting any thing in its place ; not 
against affirmatives, but against negatives. Doubt- 
ing is not truth, but the very destroyer of truth. If 
men would make this distinction, they would find 
no difficulty in reconciling the highest doctrine of 
implicit faith with the most ardent zeal for the pos- 
session of truth. Let us take one of the cases most 
likely to perplex us. 

A Socinian has been brought up in a creed, 
which we, the members of the Catholic Church, 
know to be false and blasphemous, because it is 
contrary to the creed transmitted by Christ to his 
Apostles, by the Apostles to the Catholic Church, by 



332 REJECTION OF DOUBTS. 

the Catholic Church to ourselves. A Deist, who 
rejects all revelation, comes to him, and endeavours 
to undermine the little faith he still possesses in the 
Scriptures. The Socinian would be bound to turn 
away his ears. He would say, I now possess some 
belief; and this, whatever it be, is better than none, 
to which you would reduce me. I have received it 
from parents, teachers, advisers, whom I was natu- 
rally bound to respect. I am pledged to them by 
the very fact of having been educated by them, as a 
man feels that he is bound to the political principles 
and party of his family, until he has reasons for 
abandoning them. But you give me no reasons ; 
you do not offer me truth, instead of error ; but, at 
the very utmost, no truth at all, instead of partial 
truth. And you do not offer me this upon any au- 
thority at all adequate to the authority under which 
I received it ; for there is no religious sect whatever, 
how poor and contemptible it may be, which is 
not infinitely stronger and more worthy of respect 
than any individual, or even any body, of infidels. 
In the same manner a Mahometan would answer to 
an Atheist ; a Romanist to an Epicurean ; a Catholic, 
who adheres to the positive creed of the Catholic 
Church, to a mere Protestant, who thought less of 
retaining what was true, than of lopping off what 
was false. 

But instead of a Deist coming to the Socinian, 
let it be a true Catholic ; and observe how the case 
is altered. The Catholic does not endeavour to take 
from the Socinian what he believes already, but to 
add to it. He says, You believe in the humanity of 
our Lord ; believe also in his Divinity. You believe 
that God is one ; believe also that in that unity are 
three Persons. You believe that repentance is ne- 
cessary to wipe away sin ; believe also that something 
more is required — the atonement of Christ. You 



CH. XXIII.] REJECTION OF DOUBTS. 333 

think that each man should acquaint himself with 
the grounds of his faith : you are right ; but admit 
also that he should be guided by the testimony of 
others. You recognise the necessity of religious 
congregations ; admit also the being of a Church. 

Or, again, let the Papist come to a member of 
the Catholic Church in England. He calls on me 
to respect the pope ; I have no objection to respect 
him, until he requires some allegiance, which I can- 
not give without abandoning the constitution of the 
Catholic Church. He bids me shew reverence to 
saints ; I do reverence them, up to the point when 
it would interfere with the exclusive worship of and 
mediation of our blessed Lord. He prescribes fast- 
ing and mortification, almsgiving, confession, as 
means of grace. In their way they are means of 
grace ; they may all conduce to good, and all may 
be adopted, so far as not to clash with the previous 
doctrine that no man can be saved by any works of 
his own. He insists on the mystery of the holy 
sacraments ; I admit it fully — go with him willingly 
in his belief of a supernatural inward grace accom- 
panying the outward sign, until he comes to a point, 
when he destroys the outward sign by the doctrine 
of transubstantiation. 

Or apply the case to common life. 

A traveller brings us intelligence of a new con- 
tinent, a new species of animal, an extraordinary 
eclipse, a fresh earthquake. Here is something ad- 
ditional to our present knowledge. Are we to reject 
it, because it is additional — because it is new? or 
shall we try the possibility of holding it with our 
former creed ? And all things may be held together 
except absolute contradictions. But he brings us a 
seeming contradiction : he declares, that a fact oc- 
curred at a place and time when we were present 
ourselves and saw nothing of the kind. Now, this 



334 REJECTION OF DOUBTS. 

is a seeming contradiction. Is it a real contradic- 
tion? Certainly not; for my seeing an object, and 
its being present before me, are not the same propo- 
sition. My statement is, that I saw it not ; his, that 
whether I saw it or not, it really took place. How 
am I to decide ? I answer, that I should decide by 
testimony. And if a number of trustworthy per- 
sons coincided with the traveller, I should give up 
my own opinion ; I should say, that for my senses 
to be out of order and deceive me, was far more 
probable than that a number of others should be so 
deceived. And, on the same ground, I should reject 
his statement, if the balance of witnesses were with 
myself. 

Here, then, are the two circumstances which, if 
man presumes to demand the reason of a positive 
command from God, explain the wisdom of peremp- 
torily insisting on the exclusion of all doubt from 
the mind of a member of the Catholic Church. 
They shew the wisdom of insisting on a pledge, 
vow, or promise, that he will hold fast what Tie has 
been taught. It is in his power to exclude doubt, as 
much as to exclude any other evil thought. It is 
his moral duty to do so ; because until a new Church 
comes before him, surpassing the authority of the 
old — until a new system of belief is placed in his 
hands, by a body of hereditary teachers of 1800 
years' standing, and equal to the Catholic Church 
in its claims to an historical revelation — he is bound 
not to depart from the rules to which he is pledged 
already. 

And so far of the purely intellectual bearings of 
that creed, which the Christian Church enforces on 
the belief of all her members, at their first entrance 
into her communion. 

But, besides a principle within man which per- 
ceives and compares ideas, and derives from their 



CH. XXI IT.] VIRTUE VOLUNTARY. 335 

relations the notions of true and false, equal and 
unequal, and the like, man has another principle — 
that of action. He is, to all appearance, the original 
source of motion to innumerable and infinite trains 
of causes and effects. It is in this light that he be- 
comes a moral being, in that restricted sense of the 
word, which conveys the idea of virtue and vice, 
punishment and reward, merit and demerit, respon- 
sibility and freedom. And this principle is addressed 
by the Church, when she requires a second pledge. 
" Wilt thou, then, obediently keep God's holy will 
and commandments, and walk in the same all the 
days of thy life?'' J The same pledge, as we have 
seen before, was exacted by the ancient Church, 
under the form of an open renunciation of Satan, 
and of adherence to Christ. 

Let us consider, then, what are the answers here 
given by the Church to some of the principal ques- 
tions in the science of morals. 

1 . First, then, the Church agrees with all human 
ethical schools, in insisting, as a preliminary condi- 
tion of goodness, that it should come from the heart. 
If man is compelled against his will to be liberal, or 
merciful, or just, or to expose himself to danger, or 
to observe moderation in his enjoyments, whatever 
be the nature of his external acts — however condu- 
cive to good, or agreeable to the law which a good 
man would lay down — they want the primary con- 
dition of virtue ; what Aristotle calls the ^ooci^.cn<; ; 
Bishop Butler, the principle of virtue ; modern philo- 
sophers, free will, or, to use a more intelligible word, 
free agency. She deals with the person to be bap- 
tised, as with one who has the power of choosing 
between two courses, and whose conduct is to be 
determined not by an external influence, compelling 

1 Baptismal Service. 



336 VIRTUE VOLUNTARY. 

him to act in one way, while his will moves in an- 
other ; but by the decision of his own heart. And 
such is the fact with the Christian. The action 
does proceed from his will ; the will is within him. 
It may be, and we know is, infused by God ; but it 
is infused so secretly, that the external influence is 
not distinguishable from the internal spontaneous 
movement, and, at least, the suffering which attends 
it is internal. And if we ask, why this condition 
is necessary for moral goodness ; it is because the 
proper and only subject of contemplation, when we 
speak of virtue and vice, punishment and reward, 
praise and blame, is the mind itself. The act is 
nothing, except as indicating the state of the mind. 
And thus the most opposite acts mil sometimes 
seem equally good ; and precisely the same act will 
appear either good or evil, according to the state 
of the will from which it flows. Clytemnestra kills 
Agamemnon. Does she think merely of screening 
her adultery from detection ? The guilt is deadly. 
Does she consider herself as the nearest of kin to 
Iphigenia, whom Agamemnon had murdered before, 
and whom, by the old traditionary laws of Greece, 
she was bound to avenge in like manner ? She is 
acting under law. And as such ^Eschylus has re- 
presented her. So Abraham sacrificing his son, and 
the Canaanites making their children pass through 
the fire to Moloch, are two wholly different charac- 
ters, though their outward acts are the same. One 
acts from obedience to a positive law ; the other 
from an idolatrous superstition. 

Again, a general of an army, when the battle 
commences, places himself in the safest position in 
the rear. A common soldier who did this would be 
shot. And his virtue is to post himself in front. 
And yet both act with the same view, to obey 
orders. The general is bound by his duty to his 



CH. XXIII.] VIRTUE VOLUNTARY. 337 

troops, not to risk his own safety ; the soldier, to 
risk his. 

This condition in an act, that it should flow from 
the will, is so essential to our notions of goodness, 
that schools which have insisted on describing man 
as a merely mechanical agent, swayed about by ex- 
ternal motives, as one billiard-ball is impelled by 
another, have been obliged to destroy the distinc- 
tions between good and evil, praise and blame, and 
to regard all actions alike as equally irresponsible and 
indifferent, except in the expediency of their results. 
One important remark may be made on this 
head. It does not follow because free agency or 
determinate will is necessary to make an action 
good that it should also be necessary to make an 
action bad. On the contrary, it seems impossible 
that a bad man should ever act wilfully, that is, 
with deliberate choice — ^oa^m*^. The statement 
will seem strange and dangerous. But let us re- 
member that no man can obliterate from his reason 
the natural preference of virtue over vice. It does 
not seem possible that the intellect should ever make 
a mistake in choosing beween them. And so expe- 
rience proves, that when men sin, they sin confessing 
at the same time that they sin against their will, 
under the force of temptation, or the impulse of pas- 
sion. Secondly, though some voluntary movement 
must take place in their mind before they can act, 
there is a wide difference between the determination 
of a bad man after balancing between actions, to do 
what is wrong, and the determination of a good man 
to do what is good. The former is a resolution to 
abandon farther struggle ; the latter to continue it. 
One folds his arms, and allows himself to be carried 
down the stream ; the other nerves them to a more 
vigorous effort. In one sense they are both acting 
wilfully ; but the will is deliberate choice solely in 

G G 



338 SENSES OF THE WORD MORAL. 

the case of the good man. Thirdly, this absence of 
deliberate choice does not relieve the bad man from 
his responsibility, or from our moral disapprobation. 
For it is this very absence which constitutes his vice. 
It is the want of this power 1 to fight against tempta- 
tion — it is the passive indolence and submissiveness, 
with which he abandons the struggle, which we dis- 
like and despise, and punish, and which renders his 
mind worthless, and fit only for destruction. It is to 
overcome this, that the discipline of nature and Chris- 
tianity is mainly framed. Nature deals with man as 
with a timid cowardly child. She endeavours to 
provoke him to rise up and fight. And if he will 
not move, then he is discarded, as unfit for any post 
of honour or power. 

2. Secondly, the Church, in exacting its pledge 
of obedience, answers another very important ques- 
tion in the science of Ethics ; and one which, not- 
withstanding the many recent discussions on moral 
subjects, has been strangely neglected. 

The word moral is used in several senses. Some- 
times it is opposed to material — as the moral world 
to the physical world — and in this sense it means 
mental ; and implies as we have just seen, that the 
subject of ethical science is mind, not matter. But 
it is also opposed to the intellect and to taste. Thus 
we distinguish between a man's moral and intellec- 
tual habits — between that which is morally beauti- 
ful, and that which pleases the imagination. We 
apply, indeed, the same terms to all classes of ob- 
jects, which please or displease us : for instance, a 
good mathematician ; a bad poet ; a right calcula- 
lation, and a right motive ; a noble architectural de- 
sign, and a noble act of heroism ; a wrong argument 
and a wrong feeling. But it is evident, that there 
is a wide difference in the nature of the subjects to 
1 The tokp&t* of Aristotle. 



CH. XXII I.] MORALS BETWEEN PERSONS. 339 

which these words are attached. And what is this 
difference? Aristotle makes it to consist mainly in 
the mixture of feelings, appetites and desires, with 
that class of actions which are peculiarly called mo- 
ral, and in the uncertainty and contingency of their 
nature as contrasted with the mathematical demon- 
stration to which others are reducible. But the 
Church evidently makes another and a more correct 
distinction. As we have seen before, there are in 
the world two classes of objects — persons and things. 
And these are mutually related to each other. There 
are relations between persons and persons, and be- 
tween things and things. And the peculiar distinc- 
tion of moral actions, moral characters, moral prin- 
ciples, moral habits, as contrasted with the intellect 
and other parts of man's nature, lies in this, that 
they alivays inply a relation between two persons, 
not between two things. You compare the three 
angles of a triangle with two right angles — both 
subjects compared are things ; you perceive the re- 
lation between them, but it is a purely intellectual 
process. You take up Pope's translation of Homer; 
you contrast it with the original, remark its infe- 
riority ; the relation is between two things, and there 
is nothing moral in it. You calculate sums ; study 
facts of history ; syllogise ; observe the accordance 
of works of arts with certain rules and standards ; 
praise the proportions of a building, the correctness 
of a design; censure an ill-contrived machine, a 
coarse painting, harsh music. In each and all you 
use the terms good or bad, right or wrong, accord- 
ing as the relations which you find exhibited coin- 
cide with the relations in which the two objects ap- 
pear to you. If you believe that Oxford is distant 
from London sixty miles, and a topographer names 
eighty, you disapprove, censure his statement. It is 
false, wrong, bad ; but still the error is not moral, 



340 MORALS BETWEEN PERSONS. 

If an architect builds a Christian Church on a Gre- 
cian plan, you, who would wish to see a correspond- 
ence between the material building and the pur- 
pose for which it is employed, are shocked with the 
incongruity. Still the fault is not properly speak- 
ing moral. But the moment you consider such 
questions, not as a mere relation between two things, 
but as a relation between two persons, then imme- 
diately they will assume a moral character. You 
will praise and blame with very difTerent sentiments 
— with much more keenness. The idea of respon- 
sibility, of conscience, of punishment, of reward, of 
merit and demerit, will come in ; and the words 
good and bad, wright and wrong, will be used in 
their restricted and peculiar sense. 

Let us illustrate this. The owner of an estate 
cuts down some trees. You compare two things — 
the view now opened with the confinement of it be- 
fore ; and you call the act good. But the owner has 
children, for whom he should have preserved the 
timber Here is the relation of one person to another 
person ; and you call it unjust. Or he is in. debt, 
and does it to satisfy his creditors ; here, again, is 
the relation of a person to a person, and it is a moral 
act. A man gambles ; he plays cards with great 
success. You see in it nothing but intellectual skill, 
applied to calculate contingencies an,d gain his end ; 
and you admire it, as you would admire any inge- 
nious machine or clever contrivance. But he ruins 
those from whom he wins — he hazards the property 
of others — he wastes in play the time which he owes 
to God — he irritates and corrupts his mind, over 
which he is placed by God to preserve it in sobriety 
and order — he encourages bad habits in others ; in- 
stantly gambling becomes an immoral act. A clerk 
in a banking-house casts up an account. His cal- 
culation does not coincide with the real items ; it is 



CH. XXIII.] MORALS BETWEEN PERSONS. 341 

wrong : but the error is not moral ; it is intellectual. 
But conceive him as injuring his master's interest 
or desiring to defraud yourself, or as merely neglec- 
ing to exercise that control over his own thoughts 
which he was bound as a reasoning being to exercise, 
and immediately the act becomes moral. A Dissenter 
holds certain speculative opinions on the Divine 
nature. Merely as metaphysical tenets they may be 
false or true, right or wrong ; but no one would 
punish or condemn him. But he holds them in de- 
fiance of an authority which he ought to respect ; in 
publishing them he is misleading others ; the hold- 
ing of them dishonours Almighty God; the very 
permitting his mind to remain in error is an injus- 
tice to it, is mischievous to it ; and he stands to it 
in the same relation as a parent to a child, bound to 
procure for it all good, and to save it from all evil : 
and thus an erroneous theological dogma becomes a 
moral crime. 

One man is fond of theatrical amusements. So 
far his taste may be good or bad ; but simply as 
taste, the propensity is not a subject for moral ap- 
probation or censure. But bring in the considera- 
tion of the unhappy persons whom he encourages 
to engage in a profession ruinous to their own 
minds, and it becomes a vice. Another man writes 
a poem. It may be correct, elegant, sublime, or 
just the reverse. But no one calls it immoral till 
the thought arises of some person whom it will cor- 
rupt, or whose laws it violates. 

And let it be remembered that there are three 
kinds of persons between whom relations may be 
perceived. First, as between Cicero and Augustus, 
between Socrates and Anytus, where the two par- 
ties are distinct individuals. Secondly, where one or 
both the parties is a corporate person — as between 
a citizen and his country, a student and his college, 

G Gr 



342 MORALS BETWEEN PERSONS. 

a Christian and the Church, a member of any society 
and the society itself; for corporations as well as 
individuals are persons, and have their rights and 
duties as clearly defined. The third case is between 
a man and himself. For the mind of man is not 
absolutely one, but is divisible into three persons. 
Take, for instance, a sentiment of remorse. Mac- 
beth, a thinking being, contemplates himself as the 
murderer of Duncan, and then compares himself m 
that character with himself in another character, as 
benefitted and trusted by his victim. Hence the 
consciousness of his guilt. It is the same Macbeth 
in each of the three characters. But without this 
distinctness and separation of the persons, co-exist- 
ing with the unity of substance in the mind itself, 
there could be no conscience". Hence we speak of 
a man commanding himself, admiring himself, cen- 
suring himself, loving himself. His mind takes the 
form of two persons, as distinctly separated, and 
therefore as capable of relations between themselves, 
as Socrates and Anytus, father and son, a king 
and a subject, Hence it is that many acts are de- 
cidedly immoral, which, nevertheless, may not seem 
to bear in any way upon other persons without us. 
Idleness, frivolity, self-indulgence, may be conceived 
to exist, where they may even be beneficial to others. 
But the moral eye regards the mind as standing in a 
certain relation to itself — as bound, that is, to check 
its own inclinations, to rear itself up in dignity and 
hardihood. And when it fails to do this, it is cen- 
sured. 

Is this sufficient to hint at the essential feature 
in moral actions, as distinguished from other mental 
operations to which also we apply generally the terms 
good and bad ? It is the perception of relations be- 
tween persons, and not between things. And the 
Church sums up the principle in making all good- 



CII. XXIII.] SECONDARY MOTIVES. 343 

ness consist in obedience to a person — even to 
God. 

From this head may be deduced several import- 
ant corollaries, which I will briefly touch on. 

First, it explains why our moral sense is more or 
less acute in proportion to the warm, affectionate, 
humble character of the heart. Men who are ac- 
customed to regard nothing in the world but things ; 
who are absorbed in physical or metaphysical science, 
or in mathematics ; who are proud, or selfish, or con- 
ceited, and look on other men as their property, or, 
at least, as wholly independent of them ; such men 
are in the eye of Scripture the most immoral. They 
want the faculty of perceiving the very facts on 
which moral duties depend. It is like a person 
being blind, whose whole business is to measure 
distances with his eye. 

Secondly, you may see what kind of secondary 
motives God employs, and man also may employ in 
education, without the danger of suppressing the 
real moral principles. We often doubt how far 
pleasure and pain, hope and fear, may be used as 
incentives to goodness ; how far emulation, shame, 
ambition, should be encouraged, as the means of 
stimulating a proper moral activity. Now so far as 
these are selfish, and we accustom the young to 
think in them of their own enjoyment, so far they 
are evidently wrong and mischievous. But so far 
as they are intended to bring before their eyes, and 
accustom them always to reflect on the persons with 
whom they are surrounded, the affections and actions 
thus generated, though not yet perfect, inasmuch as 
they do not yet flow from a knowledge of God, or a 
principle of obedience to him, yet are in themselves 
parts of a virtuous habit. If a star were shot forth 
into the abyss of space, to move round the sun, it 
must learn, as it were, the existence of that central 



344 SECONDARY MOTIVES. 

sun and owning the law of gravitation, turn and 
bend round to it in its whole course. And yet it 
might be also good, it might even be necessary at 
first, for it to learn the existence and feel the attrac- 
tions of other stars and planets, which might by 
similar laws of gravitation check it from wandering 
far. And this especially, if those stars were so ar- 
ranged, that their conjoined forces should keep it 
moving in the proper line, even before it knew the 
sun on which that line depended. And thus God 
has arranged mankind. And men discern and feel 
the attractions of their fellow-men, of parents, bro- 
thers, friends, kings, teachers, rulers, long before 
they understand their true relation to God himself. 
And yet gratitude to parents, loyalty to kings, love 
to friends, faith in teachers, are in themselves vir- 
tuous affections, imperfect indeed, and almost worth- 
less, until religion comes in to bind man's mind to 
move simply and uniformly in one clear orbit round 
the throne of his Maker — yet still not vicious like 
self-love. And their attractions are so constructed, 
that, if fully felt, they keep men pretty nearly in the 
same path of earthly duty which God himself would 
require ; for no man fails to encourage those whom 
he loves or rules in doing good. And it is also the 
interest of rulers, as well as their duty, when a wan- 
dering spirit would attach itself to them, to lead it up 
to another object of affection, God himself; for with- 
out the authority of God, their own rights over him 
are null and void. Moreover, also, as the relations 
in which man stands to his fellow-man are analo- 
gous to, and typical of, the relations in which he 
stands to God, as that of son to father, brother to 
brother, pupil to teacher, a poor man to a benefac- 
tor, a criminal to a judge ; so by accustoming himself 
to discern these human relations, and to act upon 
them, he prepares himself to discern and to act on 



CH. XXIII. J SECONDARY MOTIVES. 345 

his similar relations to God. This is the connexion 
between heathen morality and the reception of 
Christianity ; between a child's obedience to his 
parents, love of his brothers, reverence for his supe- 
riors, and the piety to which they should lead, and 
without which they are worthless. It would be well 
for you to illustrate these principles, by observing 
how the Bible deals with our domestic and human 
affections ; encouraging them when they lead up to 
religion ; condemning them when they interfere with 
it ; requiring that they should be made instrumental 
in teaching religion ; and looking with far more in- 
dulgence on excesses of affection than on the want 
of it. You might also trace in St. Paul's Epistles 
the same principle of analogy preserved betw r een 
our human and divine relations. Observe, also, 
how the secondary motives of fear and hope are 
employed in the old Testament, not in any way to 
encourage the principle of selfishness, or to make 
virtue a mere matter of calculation ; but to bring 
clearly and palpably before man the presence of 
God. Hence punishments, which far overbalance 
the seeming offence, (as in the case of Uzza), and 
which yet would strongly impress on the mind the 
awfulness of God. Hence blessings, the only bles- 
ings which a sensual eye could appreciate, to bring 
before them his infinite goodness. Hence also the 
peculiar need of a manifestation of a particular pro- 
vidence in the Jewish dispensation. 

Thirdly, another corollary to be drawn, regards 
the connexion between the intellect and what are com- 
monly called our moral actions. If our moral duties 
and affections depend on the relations of persons to 
persons, these relations are as much the subject of 
intellectual discovery and perception, as the rela- 
tions of abstract things ; as of two to four, of the 
square of the hypothenuse to the squares of the two 



346 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 

sides, of the copy of a picture to the original. 
Hence in every right moral action there is an exer- 
cise of thought, to ascertain these relations — what 
Aristotle terms /3ov\sv<nc. And a failure in this is 
just as much a subject for moral censure as a failure 
in feeling or affection. In fact, the feeling depends 
necessarily on the perception of the relation, and 
the action on the feeling. If a man is grateful to 
his benefactor, he must shew it in his works. If he 
understands the benefit, the sacrifices made to secure 
it, his own previous wants and other circumstances, 
which enhance a kindness, he cannot avoid being 
grateful. Wherever there is a deficiency either in 
action or in feeling, it is to be traced to a defect, 
either voluntary or involuntary, in the perception of 
the relations. Somtimes a man may be ignorant 
of them, without having had the means of ascertain- 
ing them, as when CEdipus kills his father. Some- 
times he is prevented from inquiring into them by 
passion or folly, as when the Jews crucified our 
Lord. Sometimes he miscalculates their nature, as 
when St. Paul persecuted the Christians. But to 
every case alike, it is remarkable to observe, that 
nature has attached some punishment. Whatever 
may be the condition of heathens in another world, 
it is certain that their ignorance of Christianity is a 
positive evil to them here ; just as a man's ignorance 
of the intention of a murderer is followed by his 
own death, without reference to his carelessness, or 
inability to make himself acquainted with the fact. 
God, indeed, seems purposely to punish ignorance 
with the utmost severity, in order to set us on cor- 
recting it, and keep us always alive and watchful in 
observing and searching for the true relations in 
which we stand to other beings. It i9 the absence 
of this watchfulness which constitutes our vicious- 
ness. Hence, also, we may see the connexion be- 



CII. XXIII.] INTELLECT AND MORALITY. 347 

twccn the creeds of Christianity and practical reli- 
gion, as it is called ; two things which in this day 
men are so desirous to dissever. For as all our piety 
to God must flow from a knowledge of his nature, 
alter in the least point our conception of that nature 
and our devotional affections must alter likewise. 
All the questions (falsely called metaphysical spe- 
culations,) respecting the Divine nature which the 
Church was compelled to pronounce on, by the he- 
resies in the first four centuries, were just as prac- 
tical as those of a latter time respecting man's free 
will, or justification by faith or works. The Atha- 
nasian Creed is as much the basis of Christian mo- 
rality, so far as morality is a part of religion, and 
religion a part of morality, as the Ten Command- 
ments. Bishop Butler has already shewn this. 1 
Admit the doctrines of Arius, and our entire devo- 
tion to our Lord as to Almighty God must sink 
into mere respect for a superior creature. Follow 
the heresy of Macedonius, and immediately you 
abandon all devotion to the Holy Spirit. Mistake 
the slightest point in the combined human and 
divine nature of our Lord, and the whole character 
of our affections towards him must fall into error 
likewise. And so of other points. Not, remember, 
that the moral influence of a theological doctrine, 
was, or ought to be, the reason for maintaining it. 
If it be a truth committed by God to the keeping of 
the Church whatever its abstract or its practical 
character, the Church would be equally bound ri- 
gidly to preserve it inviolate. And this was the 
ground taken by the early defenders of catholic 
doctrines against heresies. But this moral influence 
may be worthy of notice, as exposing the sophistry 
which would distinguish between theology and reli- 
gion ; as if religion could be inculcated where theo- 
1 Analogy, part ii. chap. 1. 



348 ORIGIN OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 

logy was not taught, or as if moral duties had no 
connexion with the maintenance of a definite creed. 
Fourthly, we may learn the origin of our moral 
sentiments, How is it that men approve or disap- 
prove of certain actions, call them right or wrong, 
and consequently desire to punish or reward them ? 
The process is the same which takes place in any 
other perception of relations between two objects. 
I see a tree forty feet high, by the side of another 
only twenty feet high. I contrast the two, place 
them side by side, pass from one to the other ; and 
there rises up in my mind an idea of relation between 
them, a consciousness of superior magnitude in one, 
of less magnitude in the other. Now this notion of 
greater or less is not derived from the sight of either 
tree by itself, but from the comparison between the 
two. It is like the plant, which the sun and the soil 
give birth to ; it is neither in the sun nor in the 
soil, but is produced by the joint action of the two. 
Or as the pain which follows a blow ; it is neither in 
the stick, nor in the body, but results from them 
both. Or like a musical note, which is neither the 
impulse of the hand, nor the vibration of the string, 
but is born from them together. And musical notes 
indeed which lie dormant and buried in the chords, 
without our being able to anticipate them before 
experience, or to call them out without striking the 
strings, are a fair illustration of all those ideas and 
feelings produced by the contemplation of two ob- 
jects in relation to each other. Let any one examine 
his own ideas — of number, for instance, space, time, 
proportion, causality, effect, coincidence, magnitude, 
motion, — and he will see at once what a multitude 
of our ideas are ideas of relation. If the truth were 
told at once, I ought to say, that a vast number, if 
not all, are perceptions of relation between two ob- 
jects, of neither of which are we conscious, or know 



CH. XXIII. J ORIGIN OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 349 

any thing of them, but the relation in which they 
stand to each other. It is a strange statement, but 
true. For instance, no one knows any thing of God, 
but relations, which he has been pleased to reveal 
between himself and his creatures. And no one 
knows any thing of his own mind, but its relations 
to other things ; and yet, what is religion but a sense 
of the relation between our mind and God? So the 
notion of a line is that of a certain relation between 
one point and another ; but a point itself is invisible. 
No one ever saw a point which is without length, 
or breadth, or thickness. This is another mystery 
of our nature : but I will not dwell on it, further 
than to repeat, that all our knowledge is, in fact, a 
perception of relations. 

Now, from whence do these ideas of relation 
come ? They are implanted in us by Nature. They 
lie dormant in the mind of every human being, are 
unalterable, eternal. Wherever they seem to vary, 
the variation arises, not from a different idea follow- 
ing the perception of the same relations, but from 
the perception of seemingly the same thing in dif- 
ferent relations. Take an octagon building ; paint 
each side of a different colour^ Fix eight men 
fronting severally each side. Call them away, and 
ask them the colour of the building ; and each will 
give a different account. Now, where does the 
falsehood lie ? Do the same external colours pro- 
duce different impressions on different eyes ? Is the 
evidence of the senses uncertain ? Are there no 
fixed principles of sensation ? No : the mistake lies 
in a false inference. Each man, instead of confining 
his statement simply to the part which he saw, de- 
clares that the whole building, which he did not see, 
is of the same colour with the part that faced him. 
His senses are correct : his belief would be correct, 
if he would not fancy more than he really perceived. 

H H 



350 ORIGIN OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 

Shift the parties, and try if, when placed before the 
same side, they all agree in seeing black, or blue, or 
red, or yellow, where the colour really exists. 

So it is with the perception of relations between 
persons or minds. The feelings resulting from the 
perception of them are natural to us — they are in- 
terwoven with us from our birth — cannot be eradi- 
cated — are universal, eternal. In no man were they 
ever altered — not perhaps even in monsters. Nor, 
perhaps, would it be possible to conceive that they 
should be mutable, without inferences leading also 
to the mutability of the Divine attributes. But it 
is possible to see the same action in very different 
relations. Brutus puts some human beings to death; 
it is murder. They are his children : the murder 
becomes more horrible. But he condemns them as 
a magistrate : the act ceases instantly to be criminal. 
But the safety of his country requires it : it may 
become even meritorious. A Spartan boy steals : 
the act is criminal. But he is commanded by the 
laws : it becomes excusable. The practice is ad- 
mitted by his fellow- citizens : it becomes innocent. 
It encourages activity of mind, and makes him hardy 
and capable of defending his country : it may be 
even praiseworthy. Now, in these cases of seeming 
differences of opinion, in reality it is not the same 
act which is contemplated, but different sides of the 
same act. Let all men see the same side, and all will 
agree. Each is right in his own statement, if his 
statement be confined to that part of the action of 
which he is speaking. There is no variety in our 
moral sentiments ; but many points of view in which 
the same objects may be regarded. 

Now, to return to the illustration of the build- 
ing : if the man who had been placed opposite to the 
green side heard another declare that the building 
was black, he would pronounce the statement false 



CH. XXIII.] ORIGIN OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 351 

or wrong. If a person, whom we believe guilty, is 
acquitted by a judge, who believes him innocent, 
the judge is condemned by us. If a man, who has 
large claims on him from his children, refuses to 
assist a charity, and we know nothing of these 
claims, and believe him rich, we pronounce him il- 
liberal. That is, in every case we have ourselves a 
notion of a certain relation between two parties, and 
of the duty flowing from it ; and when these parties 
act in a different way, then our moral sense is shocked. 
Place before us the real relation in which they stand, 
and our moral judgment will instantly change. Thus 
it is the perception of true relations on which de- 
pends our right moral action. And moral education 
consists in impressing on minds the knowledge of 
these relations : as when we are taught that God is 
our Father ; that Jesus Christ is our Saviour ; that 
our parents are representatives of God ; that kings 
and magistrates are God's ministers; that the Church 
is our mother ; that all mankind are our natural 
brethren, and all true members of the Church our 
spiritual brethren. There is little or no effort made 
to produce right actions or right feelings immedi- 
ately, because these will flow spontaneously when 
the relations are known, and thoroughly worked into 
our practical consciousness by accustoming ourselves 
to act upon them. Thus, to repeat it, Socrates and 
Plato consider virtue as a science — the science of 
relations between persons, lina-Tr,^. On the other 
hand, the progress of vice consists, not in deadening 
or extirpating the feelings — for, after the most con- 
firmed habits of profligacy, let a vail be taken from 
the heart, and they spring up in their fullest vigour, 
as keen as ever ; and if it were possible to extirpate 
them, and thus change our whole perceptions of right 
and wrong, there is no saying what consequences 
might follow ; — but it consists in so accustoming the 



352 ORIGIN OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 

mind to a certain train of thought — to see persons 
and actions in only one relation, and that the wrong 
one — that this train becomes sunk and imbedded in 
our nature, and cannot be torn out. The neck is 
twisted, and fixed for ever in that position. Thus 
a sensualist closes his eyes constantly to the dignity 
of his spiritual nature, and the degradation of his 
animal propensities, till at last he forgets that he 
has any spiritual nature at all, and becomes a mere 
animal. An injured person dwells on the injury 
and on the thought of revenge, till no explanation 
can undeceive him ; and he cannot be reconciled 
to his enemy. A coward sees nothing but his rela- 
tion to himself; and no sense of honour or disgrace 
will touch him. A man plunged in material specu- 
lations loses sight of his connexion with spiritual 
beings ; and the thought of them cannot be forced 
into his mind, thus previously occupied. The 
thoughts are the seat of the evil. And as we are 
born without a knowledge of these relations, and 
can only learn them by degrees, and are constantly 
forming wrong judgments of them, hence the neces- 
sity of a moral education, the length of time which 
it takes, and the difficulty of carrying it on. 

What, then, are these relations between persons, 
and what are the moral affections and actions at- 
tached to them by God ? 

The answer to this question also has been given 
by the Church, in her demand of obedience at bap- 
tism. Moralists usually distinguish a variety of re- 
lations ; for instance, of a child to a parent — a parent 
to a child — a citizen to his country — a friend to a 
friend — that of brother, relative, neighbour, teacher, 
pupil, husband, wife ; and under these heads are 
classed the various duties of life. Christianity takes 
a different view, and names but one — our relation 
to God. 



CIL XXIII.] RELIGION THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 353 

The Church speaks only of obeying God. And 
if in the Catechism our various duties to our neigh- 
bours are analysed and enumerated as distinct 
branches, they are all drawn out from this one root, 
and are made to depend upon it. The distinction 
is most important. I propose to explain why. 

Observe, then, first, some remarkable facts in 
the constitution of our nature. First, the mind is 
not capable of containing more than one object at a 
time ; secondly, by the law of association, it has a 
tendency to absorb itself continually in one and the 
same object ; thirdly, its affections seem incapable 
of full development unless engrossed in one end ; 
and, fourthly, the understanding itself, which Nature 
has laid under the law of unity, requires that all its 
thoughts should be reducible under some one head, 
and all its actions under some one end. This has 
before been stated generally. But from these con- 
ditions results the necessity of attaching the mind 
to some one person, placing it in some one relation, 
to which all others may be subordinated. Thus 
Nature, in her arrangement of society, has carefully 
observed a binary combination. Marriage is the 
union of one with one : polygamy is full of evil. 
Friendship, in its full development, can scarcely exist 
between more than two. Loyalty attaches us to 
one sovereign. The child, though placed under two 
parents, yet is taught to regard them as one. The 
moment many persons claim from us either affection 
or obedience, we become distracted, embarrassed, 
and incapable of action. 

Hence the perplexity of casuistry, when oppo- 
site duties seem to clash ; as, for instance, those of 
Brutus to his country and his children — those of 
Athanasius to his sovereign and his Church — those 
of Clytemnestra to her husband and her daughter — 
those of a missionary to his family and his God. 

H H 2 



354 EELIGION THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 

And no one can have been placed in the midst of 
such a distressing collision, or hare examined the 
cases of conscience with which casuistical books are 
loaded, without seeing that there are inextricable 
difficulties connected with the theory of many moral 
relations and many moral duties ; and that at least 
no ordinary mind can ever hope to solve them. 
Hence, where this principle is avowed, the desire 
of placing itself under some infallible guide ; hence 
the introduction of confession ; hence the false and 
mischievous ethical doctrines of casuistry in general ; 
and the bad ethical character of Romanism and the 
Jesuits. And practically, as we might expect, men 
do not admit of this plurality of duties : they adopt 
some one predominating object, and to this they 
sacrifice, as they must do, all others. A patriot 
takes his country, a wife her husband, a friend his 
friend, a mother her favourite child, a soldier his 
general, a loyalist his king. And when the struggle 
comes, each follows the person of his choice ; just 
as, in more common pursuits, each man abandons 
himself exclusively to some one favourite end, and 
despises all others. 

And yet men do stand in various relations to 
various moral beings, and upon each a duty follows. 
The very existence of another moral being binds us 
down immediately to certain actions and affections 
towards him. Reveal to a shipwrecked sailor in a 
desert island that another being like himself is on it, 
and what a crowd of new thoughts and obligations 
instantly rise up ! In the oft-repeated maxim of our 
old legal writers, a mere companion is a law to us. 
" Qui habet comitem habet magistrum." Even a child 
requires us to treat him with respect : 

" Maxima debetur pueris reverentia."— - Juvenal. 
Even the presence of an animal as a witness has 



CH. XXIII.] RELIGION THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 355 

been known to produce shame, and to prevent the 
commission of a crime. 

Observe, therefore, how here also the problem 
again recurs, to which I have so often alluded, of 
reconciling plurality with unity. How shall we re- 
duce all these various, and often discordant duties, 
under one simple rule ? Plow reconcile these con- 
trary relations, so as to make them one ? 

It is by the same mode by which physical science 
reduces all the various phenomena of the material 
world under certain uniform heads ; by which philo- 
sophy traces up the infinite variety of human ac- 
tions to a few general principles ; by which theology 
reads in the seemingly fragmentary and unconnected 
facts of Scripture only the one creed of Christian- 
ity ; by which thousands of distinct individuals are 
held together quietly and harmoniously in one so- 
ciety. Let each insulated fact be made the type 
and representation of one common principle, and 
at once they fall into unity, however diversified in 
their accidental circumstances. Thus, in the Scrip- 
tures, as was said before, the cross of Christ is seen 
in the tree of life, in the wood of the sacrifice laid 
on the shoulders of Isaac, in the rod of Moses, in 
the pole on which the serpent hung, in the staff of 
David, in the wood of the ark, in the bough thrown 
into the bitter waters. So the mystery of Baptism 
is read in the deep which covered the earth, in the 
waters of the deluge, in the Red Sea, in Jordan, in 
the waters of the Nile turned into blood, in the 
pitcher of water changed into wine at the marriage 
of Cana, in the w r ater borne by the man who pre- 
pared the room for our Lord's passover. And so of 
the other mysteries of Christianity. And thus also 
in civil society. To govern a nation, there must be 
a multitude of officers, each to a certain degree an 
independent agent. How shall they be prevented 



356 RELIGION THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 

from distracting it by different authorities? Let 
all of them, judges, magistrates, ministers, military 
officers, police, derive their power from one foun- 
tain-head — the king ; let the royal authority be 
borne by each, so that to resist a king's officer is to 
resist the king himself, — and the problem is solved. 
And so, to quit illustrations, let all our relations to 
other beings be considered as only parts and types 
of our one relation to Almighty God, and all our 
duties be binding on us because he has made them 
binding ; and in blessing, obeying, protecting, teach- 
ing, controlling others, let us act but in one capacity, 
as doing the will of God ; and the work is at once 
accomplished of clearing away the perplexities of 
casuistry, and tracing in all our actions one simple 
rule, from which the simplest mind will find it diffi- 
cult to err, at least from ignorance. 

Now, all the moral relations in which we can 
stand to other beings may be classed under three 
heads — creation, preservation, and destruction. 

The duties of creation contain those which a pa- 
rent owes to his child, a teacher to his pupil, a king 
to his people ; such as conveying to the minds of 
others life, goodness, wisdom, strength — improving, 
instructing, rearing them up in holiness and know- 
ledge. 

Those of preservation include justice, obedience, 
temperance, self-denial — every act which guards the 
rights of others, abstains from hurting their feelings, 
from corrupting their minds, violating their inclina- 
tions, tempting them to evil. They are the consti- 
tuent elements of love. 

Those of destruction, on the other hand, extend 
only to the bad. They are such as are suggested 
by our moral indignation at vice — by the necessity 
of defending good, and extirpating evil. Hatred at 
injustice or evil is as natural and as great a virtue 



CH. XXIII.] MORAL RELATIONS. 357 

as love of good : the two cannot be separated. And 
as we delight in preserving the good, so we delight 
in destroying evil. It is a part of our moral nature. 
Aristotle calls it vs/xscjic. 

Now, consider that these are the identical rela- 
tions in which Almighty God stands to all his crea- 
tures. He is their Maker, Teacher, Saviour, Judge. 
Man, in fact, is made in the image of his Maker. 
He was placed from the first in a position of au- 
thority. He is the type of God upon earth. As, 
therefore, Almighty God would deal with his crea- 
tures, man in all his actions may deal with his fel- 
low-beings. 

But consider, also, that he is constantly acting 
in these relations. Analyse all the impulses and 
occupations of life, and what are they but the hu- 
man mind working to one or other of these ends ? 
Ask every man the motive of his every action, and 
he will answer, that it is to create something, or 
preserve something, or destroy something. 

Consider, thirdly, that all the power which he 
exerts in these actions is purely derivative and per- 
missive ; that by himself, by his own arm, except as 
armed with power from God, he can neither create, 
nor preserve, nor destroy. All his efforts must be 
vain and futile. They are the impotent convulsive 
movements of a madman, or a child bound down by 
a stronger hand. 

It follows, that in every one of these relations, 
unless man acts as the representative and delegate 
of God, as doing God's will, he must act wrongly. 
Perhaps, we may say rather, he cannot act at all ; 
but ought rather to be considered as the unconscious 
minister of some other power — probably a power of 
evil — spreading mischief around him, under the tem- 
porary permission and long-suffering of Him who is 
the absolute Lord and Master of the whole universe. 



358 RELIGION THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 

Then add, that he is placed here under a solemn 
command from God to do all things to His honour, 
to conform himself in all things to His will, to let no 
duty or desire interfere with his duty to his Maker ; 
and it becomes clear, that any notion of a plurality 
of duties is incompatible with the singleness of de- 
votion to which he is pound by God. It is equally 
clear, that in following God's commands in all things, 
he must be at the same time fulfilling all his duties 
to man ; for man is not his own property, but God's ; 
and notwithstanding God has appointed man his de- 
legate, He has still reserved to Himself all the real 
power and authority. Man is His minister of good ; 
as the channel, which conveys the water, assists in 
nourishing the plants. And as the will of God must 
be the absolute standard of all right, whatever He 
commands must be good. 

Thus it is that all our moral relations and duties 
are properly held together, and reducible into the 
one relation and one duty of fulfilling the will of 
God. We are placed here like soldiers. A soldier 
also has many duties ; to advance, to retreat, to 
assist his comrades to mount a breach, to destroy 
the enemy. But so long as his commander retains 
in his own hand the knowledge and government of 
all the operations of the battle, so long all these du- 
ties are summed up in one — that of obedience. He 
has no right to speculate, inquire, consult his reason, 
act upon his conscience. He must make himself a 
mere machine, to be moved about unresistingly by 
the will of another. The moment he abandons this 
character, he becomes, as a soldier, worthless. 

And this truth seems to be intimated in such 
passages as the following: 

" He that loveth father or mother more than me 
is not worthy of me ; and he that loveth son or 
daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matt. 



CH. XXIII.] MORAL OBLIGATION. 359 

x. 37). "If any man come to me, and hate not his 
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and bre- 
thren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he 
cannot be my disciple"' (Luke xiv. 26). "If thy 
brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy 
daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, 
which is as thine own self, entice thee secretly say- 
ing, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast 
not known, thou, nor thy fathers .... thou shalt 
not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him ; neither 
shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, 
neither shalt thou conceal him : but thou shalt kill 
him ; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him 
to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people*' 
(Deut. xiii. 8). 

The very trial of Abraham's faith, in the sacri- 
fice of his son Isaac, is a sufficient illustration of the 
principle. 

But it will be seen still more clearly, by con- 
sidering the nature of moral obligation in general. 
The very word obligation brings us at once to ac- 
knowledge some law from a superior authority, by 
which we are tied, bound down, restrained, when 
our own tendency is to act in an opposite direction. 
No man is conscious of being tied or fettered, till 
he attempts to move his arms or feet beyond the 
length of the chain. And then he feels its resist- 
ance. In the same manner, there are certain propen- 
sities of our nature, which are constantly checked 
and thwarted by a voice and a power from without. 
The commands of parents, the laws of the state, the 
admonitions of the Church, the secret presages and 
misgivings which rise up within us under the in- 
spirations of the Holy Spirit, the anticipations of 
punishment drawn from past experience, or from the 
sufferings of others, the recollection of the vanity 
and miserv of sinful indulgence — all these, which 



360 CONSCIENCE. 

combine together, and form what we call our con- 
science, act as an external monitor opposed to our 
natural inclinations ; but of which, nevertheless, it 
is impossible to deny the authority. If a bad man 
is bent on selfish indulgences, the balance of selfish 
indulgence is clearly on the side of virtue. If he is 
a calculator of prudential considerations, virtue is 
clearly the best policy. If of a cultivated and reason- 
ing mind, vice is in itself irrational. If of an affec- 
tionate, tender-hearted disposition, vice is always full 
of discord, and virtue of love. If ambitious, vice is 
essentially in itself weakness and degradation, and 
virtue is liberty and power. And thus it is impos- 
sible for any one whatever not to acknowledge the 
superior authority of that conscience which would 
prohibit us from vice. But, then, conscience is evi- 
dently the result of a power external to ourselves. If 
it were created by ourselves, we should be able, as we 
should certainly desire, to make it say only what we 
like. " It would speak unto us smooth things, and 
prophesy deceit." Whereas its essential character, 
the only capacity in which it makes its appearance, 
or can be trusted, is when it threatens, chastises, 
rebukes, condemns, confines. It is a law external 
to ourselves. But a law implies a legislator. With- 
out a legislator, a law is null and void. And who is 
the legislator, whose law is conscience, but Almighty 
God, who speaks to us through its voice ? Who 
framed domestic and civil society, so that whether 
delivering traditional instructions, or the results of 
their own reasoning, still both parents and kings 
are, and must be, admonishers against vice, and its 
punishers? Who so constructed nature, that intem- 
perance brings sickness, dishonesty shame, cruelty 
hatred, illiberality contempt, and thus that pain 
must follow upon sin ? Who, again, has given to 
our genuine affections their charm and energy ? 



CH. XXTI1.] ALL VIRTUE OBEDIENCE TO GOD. 361 

Who has implanted in us that earnest desire of 
freedom from the temptations and oppressions of the 
flesh, and sounded perpetually in our ears, as with 
the blast of a trumpet, the cry to rouse ourselves 
to fight them ? Some Being must have planned 
all this. Without the thought of a designing hand, 
of a Maker who willed that we should act at his 
warnings point out, of a Judge who will punish us 
if we follow what he condemns, these warnings and 
condemnations are a dead letter. 

And therefore, when men would enforce obe- 
dience to virtue by the authority of prudence, or 
reason, or conscience, or human law, or the instinct 
of benevolence, or calculations of expediency, each 
of these must still be traced up to the Being who 
has declared his will through these intimations, and 
must rest on the one authority of Almighty God. 

I might state the same fact in a more abstract 
and metaphysical form, in which it will be less in- 
telligible, but may exercise the minds which are dis- 
posed to think. 

Human reason cannot conceive the existence of 
two ultimate independent principles of action, or 
two supreme Beings. And whatever is the seeming 
independence and self-acting power of men upon 
earth, we know that in reality they are all in the 
hands of God. None, strictly speaking, possess that 
spontaneity which entitles them to be considered as 
upX^ wpa?E»$, or persons, except such as are acting 
under the inspiration of God, and as members of 
the body of Christ. All others we must regard as 
machines, which it is our duty to raise into person- 
ality, by communicating to them the Spirit of God ; 
and which are worthless and punishable if they re- 
ject the communication, but which, simply as ma- 
chines, can neither excite nor claim any moral affec- 
tion or duty. Apart from the command of God, 
I I 



362 ALL VIRTUE OBEDIENCE TO GOD. 

however signified, neither king, parent, friend, or 
fellow- creature, has a well-founded title to our re- 
spect or love. 

They are the property of God — his slaves in 
the fullest sense of the word. And as a slave has 
no rights, or none which are not merged in, or do 
not flow from, the rights of his master ; so man, seen 
in the infinite supremacy of his Maker, can exercise 
no rights, and therefore claim no duties. It is very 
true that, regarding men as independent beings, we 
do love, admire, obey, and feel to them all moral 
affections. But deny the fact of their independence, 
as a Christian and a philosopher must deny it, and 
immediately they become mere things. No anger 
is felt towards persecutors, for they are instruments 
of punishment in the hands of God : no gratitude is 
felt for kindness as to the originator of it, but to 
God who has inspired it : no compassion for suffer- 
ing, for the suffering is inflicted by God; and as 
such it must be either just or beneficial, and we do 
not desire to remove it : and no respect is felt for 
goodness ; that is, even the noblest saints are not 
reverenced for themselves, but as inspired by the 
holiness of God. This language will appear very 
harsh and forced ; and it can scarcely be realised in 
practice, because it is so difficult to realise the fact 
that men, who seem to act in entire independence, 
should yet be entirely the creatures, and moved by 
the will, of God. But just as the Stoical notion of 
nature, or one supreme eternal necessity regulating 
all the movements of the world, extinguished the 
affections ; and as the doctrine of predestination, 
thoroughly carried out, hardens the heart against 
sympathy ; and as materialism, logically developed, 
is always found coupled with selfishness and insen- 
sibility to moral relations — so the true doctrine of 
one Supreme Creator, the universal Lord of all 



CH. XXIII.] ALL VIRTUE OBEDIENCE TO GOD. 363 

things, must, from the very nature of man, tend to 
withdraw our sympathies and interests from all sub- 
ordinate beings, and to fix them exclusively upon 
Him. And yet, without moral relations subsisting 
and acknowledged between each of us and all man- 
kind, what becomes of society or of man ? And how 
are these relations to be maintained consistently with 
the exclusive sovereignty of God ? I answer, first, 
under the system of nature, by placing all our duties 
to man under the sanction of a positive command 
from God. The most obviously natural and im- 
perative of all human duties, that of honouring our 
father and mother, God nevertheless did not leave 
to natural instinct, but enacted it by a positive law. 
The clear, self-evident duties of forming true no- 
tions of God's nature, of honouring him, of observ- 
ing his commandments, He did not trust to man's 
invention, but made them matters of positive enact- 
ment. Stealing, murder, adultery, false witness, 
covetousness, are all forbidden by positive laws. 
The instincts of our heart, and calculations of ex- 
pediency, may, and do, confirm them ; but, prior to 
all such confirmation, they are binding on us by the 
voice of God. So the obedience of the animal world 
to man, than which nothing could be thought more 
clear, is a positive privilege. The privilege of using 
for sustenance both the green herb and animal food, 
though reason deduces it at once, was a positive 
permission. We are admitted into a king's palace : 
reason, we suppose, might shew us the innocence of 
picking up a straw, or treading on a stone. But the 
Bible does not allow even this, or the slightest move- 
ment, without positive permission from its divine 
Master. Who has not been startled at the language 
of the patriarch, when flying from the crime of 
adultery? "Behold, my master wotteth not what 
is with me in the house, and he hath committed all 



364 ALL VIRTUE OBEDIENCE TO GOD. 

that he hath to my hand : there is none greater in 
this house than I ; neither hath he kept back any- 
thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife : 
how, then, can I do this great wickedness and sin — 
(against my master? — no) — against God?'' (Gen. 
xxxix. 8.) So in Leviticus (yi. 2): " If a man sin, 
and commit a trespass against the Lord — (we should 
expect to find enumerated under the head of such 
sins — blasphemy, or idolatry, or ungodliness, but it 
runs), — and lie unto his neighbour in that which 
was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a 
thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his 
neighbour— (and so it proceeds, enumerating other 
crimes against man of the like nature, till it is added) 
— he shall bring his trespass-offering unto the Lord ; 
. . . and the priest shall make an atonement for him 
before the Lord.'' So David replies to the charge of 
Nathan, not ' - 1 have sinned against Uriah," which 
a modern moralist would expect; but "I have sinned 
against the Lord" (2 Sam. xii. 13). So Samuel: 
" God forbid that I should sin (not against you, but) 
against the Lord, in ceasing to pray for you" (1 Sam. 
xii. 23). So in the Psalms : " Against Thee, Thee 
only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." 
So St. Peter (Acts v. 4) to Ananias : " Thou hast 
not lied unto men, but unto God." So St. Paul 
(Rom. xiii. 1): " Let every soul be subject unto the 
higher powers. For there is no power but of God ; 
the powers that be are ordained of God. Whoso- 
ever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the 
ordinance of God ; and they that resist shall receive 
to themselves damnation." But I need not multiply 
illustrations. Even the heathen Plato would recog- 
nise the same principle of morals : for as he insists 
on the necessity of man's conforming to the 3ecu, 
or forms, or laws of right which exist in the world ; 
so he considers all these as flowing from one primary 



CH. XXIII.] ALL VIRTUE OBEDIENCE TO GOD. 365 

type or form in the nature of God. And from this 
must be derived the authority and obligation of all 
that are subordinate. 

But, secondly, the Church establishes a new re- 
lation between ourselves and our fellow-creatures, 
which completely solves the problem ; and recon- 
ciles all the various duties of society with the one 
duty to Almighty God. It describes all its mem- 
bers as forming one body, as being animated with 
one spirit ; as being actually incorporated in the 
body of our Lord ; so that we are henceforth to see 
Him in every true member of the Church around us. 
" Children, obey your parents in the Lord." " Ser- 
vants, be obedient to them that are your masters, as 
unto Christ." " Wives, submit yourselves unto your 
own husbands, as unto the Lord." " Submit your- 
selves one to another in the fear of God." "What- 
soever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not 
unto men." "Know them which labour among 
you, and are over you in the Lord." This is the 
uniform language of the New Testament. 

And the two cases must be clearly distinguished. 
Men who know nothing of Christianity, and care 
nothing for the Church, are very willing to transfer 
to human nature in general the language of love 
and charity, applied by the Gospel to those only who 
are within its pale. But our relations to the two 
classes of human beings are very different. Pro- 
found respect, perfect sympathy, entire renunciation 
of self, a perfect feeling of brotherhood, and com- 
munity of interests, are our duty to members of the 
Church. But the Church, as the body of Christ, is 
the one object upon earth to engross our thoughts 
and affections ; as the love of God is the one com- 
mandment, from which all others radiate. But to 
the rest of the world lying in darkness, we owe only 
such duties as God has imposed on us — the duties of 
i I 2 



366 SELF-DENIAL. 

praying for them, laying the Gospel before them, 
ministering to their wants as to unhappy sufferers, 
regarding them with compassion and awe as children 
of wrath, and, if not in great peril, at least as ex- 
cluded from the greatest blessings, in which we are 
commanded by God to offer them a share. 

Observe carefully the tone and language em- 
ployed by the apostles in the Book of Acts in their 
addresses to heathens, and in their epistles to mem- 
bers of the Church, and you will perceive at once 
this difference, The one cold, matter-of-fact, de- 
claratory, threatening, leaving the result entirely to 
the hands of God ; the other fervent, affectionate, 
zealous, full of sympathy and the closest communion. 
Whence this difference but that in the heathen Christ 
is not present — in members of the Church he is ? 

And it may also be observed, that the entire re- 
nunciation of self, to be observed by members of the 
Church in their relations to each other, flows neces- 
sarily from this same fact. For renunciation of self 
follows necessarily on love. The moment we recog- 
nise the superiority of another being, and our uni- 
tion with him by his love, we ourselves are laid at 
his feet, and we become a part of his property, nei- 
ther allowed nor wishing to follow in any thing our 
own will. And thus every human being who has 
been made a member of Christ stands before us with 
the claim of Christ to our entire obedience — a claim 
absolutely binding on us when that which com- 
mands in them is the Spirit of God, and that which 
is to obey in us is our human nature. And there is 
no other limit placed to our self-denial towards other 
members of the Church but this which follows: when 
the human part of their nature would overrule the 
divine part of ours, then indeed we are bound to re* 
sist. But we resist on the same principle on which 
we obey, namely, that of obedience to Christ. And 



CH. XXIII.] SELF-DENIAL. 367 

if we are perplexed to know if their wishes re ally- 
flow from the Spirit of Christ, we must refer the 
question to the Church, and to the same criteria 
of spiritual things as are used in the ordinary dis- 
cernment of sound doctrine, true prophesying, and 
holy characters. 

All moral relations, then, and all moral duties, 
must be summed up in one — obedience to God. 
" Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter : 
Fear God, and keep his commandments ; for this 
is the whole of man" (Ecclesiast. xii. 13). 



368 ORIGIN OF MOEAL SENTIMENTS. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Why, then, you will ask, if you are studying ethics 
as a science — why am I to obey God? "Why is 
obedience a virtue — praiseworthy — the subject of 
reward ? and why is disobedience a vice — censur- 
able — and punishable ? And here we come to the 
question of the nature of moral obligation. And it 
branches out into several parts, according to the 
senses of that very ambiguous word ivhy. For in- 
stance, you may ask, Why is that picture beautiful ? 
And by the words you may wish to inquire, either 
why it is beautiful to yourself and gives you plea- 
sure ; or why it is really beautiful^ without refer- 
ence to your own perceptions — what constitutes real 
beauty, as contrasted with seeming beauty ; the to 
o'v with the to <£cavo|U,Evov ? So, in the inquiry into 
the nature of goodness, you may ask, Why does this 
action seem virtuous to me ; or why is it really vir- 
tuous, really right in itself, independent of my opi- 
nion ? The simple answer to the first would be, that 
you feel it good — you like the picture : you can no 
more give a further reason, than why you feel heat 
when the fire burns, or cold when the ice freezes 
you. It is an ultimate fact of consciousness, unde- 
monstrable by any other prior principles, and what 
Aristotle would term a proposition cognisable by 
sense, opog aXaQrimur. You may indeed analyse the 
picture, so as to ascertain which of the features in 
the complex object is the cause of the pleasure — 
w T hether it be the colouring, or subject, or grouping, 
or proportion ; as the chemist may analyse the loaf 



CII. XXIV.] ORIGIN OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 369 

of bread by which a man has been poisoned, to 
ascertain which particular ingredient produced the 
death. And so in examining the nature of an ac- 
tion, which individually you call good, you may try 
to strip away from it all the adventitious circum- 
stances, which have nothing to do with its morality, 
and to fix on the one point which gratifies your mind. 
For instance, in the act of Curtius, it is not the kill- 
ing himself which constitutes the virtue, nor the 
leaping into a gulf, nor the leaping in with his 
horse, nor the place where it was done, at Rome — 
all these are accidents. The real moral feature in 
the act is his self-sacrifice for the love of his coun- 
try : it is the voluntary abnegation of self, in obe- 
dience to the will of a superior Being, to whom he 
was bound by the ties of love and gratitude. Now 
it is clear, that if you did not perceive this relation 
to exist between the parties, you would think the 
action wrong. Hence the existence of this relation 
is one cause of your thinking it good. Your per- 
ceiving it yourself is another ; for without perceiv- 
ing it, you would not pronounce upon it at all. 
Hence, in the formation of a moral judgment (for 
it is a very complex process), we must presuppose, 
first, actual existing objects, as Clarke and Cudworth 
do ; and, secondly, an intellectual power of discern- 
ing the relations between them. Thirdly, from see- 
ing the relations, there springs up in the mind, as 
before said, an associated train of feelings, w r hich 
must have been coiled up in our hearts by the hand 
of Nature. Here is a benefactor — there a person 
benefitted ; the latter ought to love and requite the 
former, and if he does not, he ought to be punished. 
Why ? I cannot tell ; but these feelings follow 
on the perception as invariably as a shadow on a 
body. But this gives us another element in the for- 
mation of our moral sentiments, namely, the voice of 



370 ORIGIN OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 

God himself speaking to us through the innate sen- 
timents of our heart, which innate sentiments are 
his work. They are not in themselves a part of the 
perception of relations ; for the requital of good is 
a thing as distinct from the conferring of good, as 
pleasure is from knowledge, or sickness from eating 
fruit. And they are not the results of experience, 
for they spring up in the child before any experi- 
ence ; and experience would rather engender a con- 
trary association, since gratitude is rare, and ingra- 
titude common. Therefore, to borrow an argument 
of Plato, 1 if with the idea A is coupled universally 
another distinct idea B, and we have no internal 
mode of accounting for their combination, we must 
attribute it to an external agent, and hence to God. 
These are therefore innate moral sentiments, given 
us by God. 

But we have not yet reached a full view of the 
process of their formation. Having seen the rela- 
tion between Curtius and his country, and instinc- 
tively associated with it the idea of gratitude and 
devotion, we expect that he should act in the way 
which these affections would suggest. And here 
comes in the doctrine of sympathy in the formation 
of moral sentiments, on which Adam Smith has 
enlarged. For the degree of our expectation that 
another person under certain circumstances will do 
this or that, will depend on our own disposition to 
do it. If you would do it yourself unhesitatingly, 
and without any sense of temptation in an opposite 
direction, you will feel little wonder or admiration 
when another person does it also. You will say, It 
is very right, very proper — it would have been very 
wrong if he had acted otherwise ; but there is no 
great merit in acting thus. And hence the import- 

i PhEedo. 



CH. XXIV.] ORIGIN OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 371 

ant practical result, that good men will have least 
sense of merit, and be most shocked at sin. " When 
they have done all that is commanded, they will say 
that they are unprofitable servants." And their de- 
sire of retribution on the wicked, and their remorse 
at their own sins, will be most keen when they them- 
selves are most holy. The consideration might be 
applied, perhaps, to anticipate the state of our moral 
feelings in another world, especially at the last judg- 
ment. 

There is a second case, in which a man would 
himself, under similar circumstances, act wrong, and 
without any conscientious resistance in his own mind. 
And such a man, in estimating the same wrong act in 
another, would say only that it was what he expected. 
He would see no harm in it ; but neither would he 
see any good. He would never love or admire the 
agent. And hence there could be no sympathy be- 
tween them, and no bond of communion. No bad 
man praises a bad action, though he does not con- 
demn it. And why is this ? 

We shall see by taking a third case, when a man 
does a bad act, with many struggles of conscience, 
with desires to do better, when he has not lost good 
principles, but is incapable from weakness of follow- 
ing them out. Such a man will be able to appre- 
ciate the power and self-denial exhibited by the 
party who does what he cannot do himself. He will 
have within his intellect a right standard, and will 
approve the act which is conformed to it. He will 
measure the superiority of the agent by his own 
weakness. Humility, a knowledge of truth, a sense 
of the real excellence of virtue, and an instinctive 
attachment to and respect for a virtuous character, 
will accompany this state of mind, notwithstanding 
its imbecility of purpose . And in this state only will 
be found a keen, strong expression of moral appro- 



372 ORIGIN OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 

bation — a sense of moral beauty, or to xotXo'v, as of 
something rare, elevated, superhuman, commanding 
our reverence and wonder. For goodness and beauty, 
like greatness, are always ideas of relation, implying 
a comparison between something less good or less 
beautiful. A savage who knew nothing of machin- 
ery, and had never attempted to make any, would 
not wonder at a steam-engine. The only man who 
could thoroughly appreciate an act of self-denial 
would be a person susceptible of strong passions, 
who had himself struggled against them, and had 
himself failed. And thus it is that, with a sense of 
moral beauty, and reverence for the person in whose 
character it is found — in other words, with the prin- 
ciple of faith — there is always connected much that 
is good, — germs at ]east of goodness, efforts for right 
conduct, though hitherto unsuccessful — a knowledge 
of the right road, though as yet there is no strength 
to follow it. This remark might also be extended 
to many features in the Christian dispensation. 

In the formation, then, of our moral sentiments 
there are many agents at work, — perception, intel- 
lect, instinct; God, the Creator of instinct; rectitude 
of intention ; imperfect efforts to do right ; taste, or 
a natural admiration of that which surpasses our 
own conceptions ; judgment, or the faculty which 
compares a particular action with a general stand- 
ard ; and, last, that which in practice must come 
first, the teaching of others to point out true rela- 
tions as they really exist, and the duties which flow 
from them. And one class of duties obvious and 
intelligible to all must be employed at first to en- 
force our fulfilling these other duties, whether we 
appreciate them or not. For instance, to under- 
stand the real tenure of property, and our obligation 
to be generous ; or the real spiritual dignity of a 
member of the Church, and the degradation of sen- 



CH. XXIV.] ORIGIN OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. 373 

sual gratification : or the relations between language 
and the mind and between the speaker and God 
who hears him, on which relations may depend the 
obligation of truth, as on our perception of them 
depends our sense of the obligation, — to understand 
these requires much knowledge, profound inquiry, 
and continued habits of virtue, which neither a child 
nor a young man, and not even an old man until 
after a long discipline can possess. But the merest 
child can see and feel the superiority of his parent 
to himself. He has only to look to his own limbs, 
to hear the voice of his parent, to meet his eyes, to 
feel his hand, to witness his acts, — and he recognises 
his own inferiority ; and with this recognition comes 
the duty of obedience. And so easy and natural is 
the conviction of the existence of Infinite Power 
above us, and beyond anything that we can discern 
with our senses, as the unseen cause of seen effects, 
that no moral relation can be stated more intelli- 
gibly, or brought more home* even to the weakest 
intellect at a very early age, than the being of a God, 
and the consequent duties of obedience to Him. And 
when obedience to man as to the appointed minister 
of God, is made identical with obedience to God 
himself, as it is in all right statements of parental 
and civil, and ecclesiastical authority, the whole of 
man's moral duties are brought round to this one 
simple relation. Virtue is made intelligible to the 
poorest capacity. All curious speculations are su- 
perseded ; and morality is summed up in the one 
simple commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
strength, and Him only shalt thou serve." 

This, then, seems the answer to the question, 
Why does a virtuous action appear good to me r — 
meaning by it, Why do I like it r and the expla- 
nation here given of the origin of our moral senti- 

K K 



374 NATURE OF GOOD. 

ments seems to have this advantage of other the- 
ories concerning it, that it comprises them all. 

But the question may mean, what is the external 
cause which thus affects me ? as when I ask, what is 
the external quality in the fire which causes in me the 
internal sensation of heat ? And to this the answer 
is, what has been so often stated before : it is the 
property in the action which produces in my mind 
the perception of unity in plurality. I am not 
afraid to state the definition in this most abstract 
form, trusting to the reader to apply what has been 
said before on the subject. Every thing to which 
the term good is applied, will be found on exami- 
nation, to have this property. When I anticipate a 
note in music, but anticipate it with some little sus- 
pense with a certain degree of doubt and hesitation, 
which implies plurality, and then the note comes as 
expected, and fills up, satisfies, gives unity to the 
train of my ideas, leaving nothing wanting — then I 
call the music good. When you are thirsting for 
water, and are debarred from it for a time, so that 
your mind is distracted as it were between the ideas 
of drinking, and the consciousness of thirst, and then 
the water is presented to you, and it satisfies the 
thirst, and removes the distraction of the want, you 
call it good. But if you anticipate something sweet, 
and it proves acid, it is immediately called bad. 
Salt, which with meat is good, in wine becomes bad. 
Why? because instead of satisfying, it disappoints 
our expectation, and produces plurality in unity, 
instead of unity in plurality. And so in morals. 
Whenever in observing the relations of one person 
to another, you wish, desire, anticipate, but with 
misgiving, with difficulty realising the fact, doubt, 
and uncertainty, whether or no he will act in a 
certain way, and then after, such misgiving, he is 
found to act in this way, then it is called good. But 



CII. XXIV.] NATUBE OF GOOD. 375 

without the previous consciousness of plurality, 
when the mind is disturbed, distracted, in want, in 
fear, in a balance of desires, so that there are before 
it two different trains of thought not reconcilable 
with each other — without this there is no conscious- 
ness of unity being given to it, and hence no notion 
of good, It is sweet, says the poet, to see the sea 
raging when you are on the shore, to fill yourself 
with the alarm of danger, and then recognise that 
you are in security. It is delightful to be perplexed 
with intellectual difficulties^ when a solution is at 
hand to reduce a variety of discrepancies under 
one acknowledged principle. The friend who saves 
us from a calamity ia indeed good ; but an enemy 
who does the same is better. And the greater the 
calamity the better we think him. A soldier who 
stands his ground against a common charge excites 
no admiration ; but the leader of a forlorn hope is 
called a hero. So, in the eyes of a temperate man, 
a temperate man is scarcely virtuous ; but to the 
slave of his passions, who yet is longing to escape 
from them, the least self-denial is regarded as an 
act of martyrdom. The property then, which, gives 
unity to plurality is the real external quality in an 
act to which we apply the term good. When an 
action is conformed to a rule acknowledged within 
us ; when we ourselves were inclined to anticipate a 
discrepancy — then we call it right. It is virtuous. 
And the opposite quality of reducing unity to plu- 
rality, that is, of unsettling, disturbing, and per- 
plexing the mind, we call evil. 

And thus God seems good only to those who 
feel their x own deficiencies and see how they are 
supplied by God. And He is good in two ways ; 
first as supplying our own personal wants, and then 
as exhibiting in himself a perfect image of all that 
is excellent to an eye, which looks around the earth 



376 LAWS OF GOD NOT ARBITRARY. 

for something to satisfy its conceptions, and looks 
in vain. 

But there is still another meaning of the ques- 
tion, Why does a virtuous act please me ? It may 
imply the final cause. Why has nature, or rather 
God, so formed me, that I do take pleasure in cer- 
tain acts and approve them, and disapprove others ? 
And the first answer to this is, that so God has 
willed it. And thus the mere will of God is made 
the foundation of morality. But another question 
may still be asked beyond this, Why is it the will 
of God? And if this were followed up, it would 
bring us into one of the most abstruse inquiries in 
ethics. For some bad philosophers, in their mis- 
taken anxiety to assert the omnipotence of God, 
have attempted to describe as purely arbitrary this 
his act, by which he has given to his moral crea- 
tures a taste for one class of actions, and a distaste 
for another. They say that God might have created 
a world, in which, by an alteration in the constitu- 
tion of our mind and of external nature, murder, 
theft, adultery, falsehood, would have been thought 
virtues, not vices ; just as a world might be imagined 
where the law of gravitation may be suspended, 
where fire may freeze, and cold burn, bread be 
poison, and arsenic nourishment ; where the sun 
may generate darkness, and the winds only smooth 
the sea. All the consequences of this absurd theory 
it is unnecessary to repeat. And to enter into such 
a discussion of it as would trespass on the deep my- 
steries of the Divine nature, would be profanation. 
It is enough that our very notion of will implies an 
object to which it is directed. But this object cannot 
be any thing out of the Divine nature, for He is be- 
fore all things, and above all things. It must there- 
fore be an attribute of His own. His own eternal 
nature is the law of His will. And thus there is a 



CH. XXIV.] REAL GOOD. 377 

basis for morality beyond mere arbitary will ; and 
that basis is laid in a creed — a metaphysical creed, 
if so you choose to call it — of the Divine attributes. 
And if the definition of good above given is cor- 
rect, namely, that it is the reducing of plurality to 
unity, it accords wonderfully with the fundamental 
truth of catholic doctrinal theology. 

And one more question may be asked, How am I 
to distinguish betw r een real good and apparent good 
— to o'v and to v $ccw6(jLsvov ? Many things w T hich are 
vicious and mischievous seem good to you. Abun- 
dance of wealth to the avaricious, indolence to the 
weary, luxury to the effeminate , drink to the thirsty, 
food to the hungry ; which yet afterwards are said 
to be bad. Is it one and the self- same quality which 
pleases you in vicious acts of w r hich you afterwards 
repent, and in good acts of which you never repent ? 
I answer, yes. In every case w r hatever, that which 
you call good is that w r hich promises at least to give 
unity, peace, and order to a harassed, distracted, 
perplexed mind. It becomes bad when it does not 
fulfil its promise ; when the thirst, instead of being 
allayed by the draught, is increased ; when the more 
wealth you acquire, the more you want ; when dis- 
honesty, instead of placing you in security and 
repose, exposes you to shame and misery, and the 
loss of God's favour; when the giving the reins up 
to a morbid fancy, only exposes you to subsequent 
mortification, and what seemed apples in your grasp 
turn to bitter ashes. That a vast number of objects 
and acts, which seem to possess unity in plurality, 
are of this deceitful nature is obvious. And it re- 
sults, as w T e have before seen, from the fact that the 
mind itself is perpetually changing. 

Now it is evident, that for the same medicine to 
w r ork the same cure, the patient must be in the 
same condition ; for fire to produce the same sena- 
K k 2 



378 REAL GOOD. 

tion of warmth, the body must always be at the 
same temperature. The same rain dripping on 
mould and on marble will produce very different 
effects. And the same object presented to different 
minds, or to the same minds in different states, will 
appear now more and now less good, now good and 
now even evil. But the human mind is perpetually 
shifting. Its ideas, feelings, habits, appetites, vary 
every hour. The senses pour in on it every minute 
a succession of varying objects. The body is con- 
tinually soliciting it with new stimulants. Its train 
of associated ideas spring up and dance, like motes 
in the sunbeam, into innumerable new combinations. 
Its energies become exhausted ; its appetites palled ; 
its impulses die away or revive. And with every 
new change, the same object, unaltered intrinsically 
as it is, appears to it in a new light. What satisfied 
before, now disgusts us ; what pleased, pains ; what 
wearied, excites ; what accorded is now discrepant ; 
what was intelligible, is now obscure. And from 
these changes arise our doubts as to the reality of 
moral good; just as from the seeming deceptions of 
the senses arise the doubts of the reality of an ex- 
ternal material world. 

As this sense of unreality, then, arises solely from 
the changes in the mind ; as there is no variation in 
the object itself, but in every object, vicious as well 
as virtuous, that which is pursued and approved 
promises the same effect, namely, the reducing plu- 
rality to unity, our whole business is to inquire, 
whether there is any state of mind so fixed and 
stable, that it will always reflect the same object in 
precisely the same form. How is the mind to ac- 
quire this uniform tone and character, the to juov*- 
f*ov of Aristotle — that which was the great end and 
aim of the Greek, and indeed of all other philo- 
sophy ? A man whose head is reeling thinks that 



CH. XXIV.] REAL GOOD. 379 

the light dances before his eyes. A drunkard feels 
the earth moving beneath him. A child in a car- 
riage says that the trees fly past him. And so the 
sceptical moralist says, that the colours of good and 
bad are shifting and the distinction of right and 
wrong perpetually confusing each other ; because, 
while they remain fixed, the same mind which per- 
ceives them is varying. And that mind must be fixed. 
When fixed, then ask if the same object appears in 
the same light — if the same answer is always given 
to the question, What is good, and what evil ? And 
there is but one way of fixing it — by cutting off 
from it all those ideas which are mere fancies, and 
have no foundation in external realities, and which 
therefore, when we bring them into contact with ex- 
ternal realities, must disappear, and deceive us — as 
the false inference drawn from the glittering of the 
mirage disappoints the traveller, when he comes to 
the spot and finds sand instead of water ; and as a 
hypothetical and falsely assumed relation between 
two parties must engender in us a moral judgment 
on their actions, which will be overturned when the 
true relation is discovered. The time will come, 
say modern historians, and say truly, when, com- 
paratively, we shall venerate the character of queen 
Mary, and contemn that of Elizabeth. They were 
what they were, each of them, independently of 
our fancies. That such a change will take place, 
does not imply that our moral sentiments will 
change, but that we shall know more of their real 
character. And inasmuch as to discover and com- 
prehend all the true relations of things is difficult, 
and to a poor ignorant man, beset by his passions 
and blinded by self-will, is hard, nay rather impos- 
sible, we must learn them from another source — 
from a Being who is neither beset by passions nor 
blinded by self-will, and who discerns all things as 



380 EEAL GOOD. 

they really are. Thus, if a distempered eye would 
know the real nature of colours, he must refer to 
one whose vision is sound. And when men dispute, 
and differ in their judgment of an action, we must 
be guided by One whose mind is, we know, unalter- 
able, and never has changed, and never will change. 
Hence Aristotle makes the wise man, or the tyovipog, 
the standard of truth, the criterion of real and ap- 
parent good. But the Qpovtpos is only a man ; his 
nature, in its highest perfection, is neither immortal 
nor immutable. And we must go still farther : we 
must have recourse to God himself. He who never 
changes, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and to- 
morrow ; whose own essential attributes determine 
his will, whose will created all things, and whose 
eye discerns all things — He alone can tell us what 
is really good and really evil. And his commands 
alone can form a stable, unshaken foundation for 
our moral belief. And by revelation, through the 
Catholic Church, we possess these commands ; and 
by no other channel, which is not tainted, and ren- 
dered suspicious and variable by a mixture of hu- 
man opinions. Draw your notions of God's com- 
mands from your reason, and your reason may logi- 
cally err ; from your conscience, and your conscience 
is too often the voice of your own corrupt desires ; 
from calculations of expediency, and how can you 
sum up the items ? from human laws, and as human 
they are fallible ; from general sentiments, and they 
also are human, and the majority of men are not 
wise and good, but ignorant and bad ; from the de- 
clarations of a self-chosen teacher, as in popery, 
but your choice will be as erroneous as your own 
moral character is defective ; from the Bible, but 
the interpretation of the Bible, if left to your own 
inferences, will be tinged with your own inclinations, 
perplexed with your own ignorance, misled by your 



CH. XXIV.] CHRISTIAN POLITICS. 381 

own false judgments. One more criterion remains 
— the real clear voice of God, attested by his ap- 
pointed ministers, and preserved, not only in the 
written word, but in the traditionary creeds, rituals, 
and history of the Catholic Church. And thus in 
morals, as in theology, Catholicity is the criterion 
of truth, and the first teacher to which we must 
have recourse. 

This, then, is the Christian definition of virtue. 
That it is a state of the heart and mind appointed 
by God to follow on certain relations between moral 
persons ; and we must learn both the relations and 
the duties consequent on them from the witness ap- 
pointed by God to his revealed will. And it would 
follow on this, to examine more distinctly the nature 
of these witnesses, and the mode in which they 
convey to us the knowledge of God's laws. They 
are, as we stated before, the parent, the king, and 
the Church. But to explain the various dependen- 
cies of these three parties, and the mode in which 
they form a perfect system of counteracting influ- 
ences, so as to preserve their general testimony un- 
corrupted, and their joint power unweakened, is the 
proper subject of a peculiar branch of Ethics, the 
science of Politics. A work on Christian Politics 
is a necessary appendage to a work on Christian 
Ethics ; and must be reserved for a separate occa- 
sion. It will be sufficient for the practical applica- 
tion of the principles at which we have arrived, 
to suggest the following consideration. Let a man 
who really wishes to do right, without entering into 
any profound analysis of ethical principles or cases 
of casuistry, resolve in all things whatever to place 
himself under the control of his parents, as repre- 
sentatives of God ; submitting to them even in the 
slightest point, giving up even to their caprices, 
abandoning all personal considerations in all things, 



382 PRACTICAL RULES. 

except ivhere a contrary law from a superior mi- 
nister of God, say from the state, comes in to pro- 
hibit him. In the same manner let him look to 
the state as another representative of God; and 
acknowledge its laws in all points, as barriers with- 
in which to restrain his inclinations and actions, 
because the powers that be are ordained of God, 
never refusing to comply except where the express 
authority of the Church, confirmed as the word of 
God, prohibits him. Let him, in the same manner, 
keep his belief, his feelings, and acts of piety — his 
religious observances, whether ceremonial or spiri- 
tual, within the ordinances and injunctions of his 
Church. Let him receive them all from the existing 
communion to which he is attached, never question- 
ing or wishing to alter them, or abandoning his pre- 
sent position, until the ancient Catholic Church, as 
the universally accredited witness of God's truth, 
comes in with some prohibition. Let him, in fact, 
form himself as the molten metal would try, if it had 
reason, to form itself into a perfect statue, keeping 
and observing the limits of the mould, as so many 
bounds, short of which it could not come, and be- 
yond which it could not pass without destroying the 
perfection of the figure. Within this let nature take 
its course. Follow the bias of the heart. Enjoy 
innocent recreations ; reason, study, act, as natural 
instinct, or rather, in a baptised member of the 
Church, as the Spirit of God suggests, without fear 
or doubt ; only with this caution, not to violate the 
lines prescribed by Almighty God, whose will you 
are to obey in all things. Would such a man pos- 
sess all the elements of goodness ? Would he be 
an object of our highest moral admiration ? Would 
he shew self-command, self-denial, prudence, love, 
natural affection, wisdom, courage, temperance, libe- 
rality, and every other virtue ? Would he be likely 



CII. XXIV.] CHRISTIAN ART. 383 

to err in his calculation of right and wrong? or 
even if he did err, would he not be indemnified by 
his desire to do right, and the care with which he 
adhered to the prescriptions of his authorised rulers? 
Would he not be a good son, a good citizen, a good 
churchman; a good man in every relation of life, 
whether to his fellow-creatures or to his God? 
Would anything be wanting to exhibit in him per- 
fect human virtue ? 

This, then, is the theory of moral duty, in com- 
formity with which the Church demands a promise 
from her members at baptism, "that they will keep 
God's holy will and commandments, and walk in the 
same all the days of their life." 1 

Study the 119th Psalm with these principles in 
view ; and from thence proceed to the Prophets and 
the Epistles, and the words of our Lord himself; and 
you will perceive at once if the theory is scriptural 
and divine. 

One more remark on this head. Aristotle has 
before this distinguished two faculties in the moral 
activity of man; one, by which he simply acts in 
the sense of making a choice, resisting temptation, 
conforming his ivill to external laws ; the other, by 
which he makes, or produces ivories, zgya,. Both 
of these will fall under the same conditions imposed 
on us by the Church, of keeping God's commands 
in all things. Art, ts^w, is as much subjected to 
a moral control and responsibility as our more 
obviously practical principles, Qgovno'ic. And the 
vast influence which a corrupted taste exercises 
not only on the young and ignorant, but on man- 
kind at large, requires that it should be treated, as 
both Aristotle and Plato have treated it, as a con- 
stituent part of ethical science. Poetry, painting, 
sculpture, architecture, manufactures, music, rhe- 
1 Catechism. 



384 CHRISTIAN ART. 

toric, with all the other productions of the creative 
faculty in man, either directly or indirectly — by the 
ideas which they convey, or the analogy of feeling 
which they excite — do mould and fashion the mind 
before which they are brought ; and the more 
powerfully, in proportion as that mind is weak and 
ignorant. And in the present day this considera- 
tion has been overlooked, until modern art has 
degenerated into a cold, shallow, fantastic show, 
pandering only to the gratification of the senses ; 
or, what is still more frequent embodying and cir- 
culating the most noxious principles. 

The importance and extent of this subject will 
justify its being examined in a separate work, which, 
if time and opportunity are granted, I shall hope to 
undertake. An enquiry into the principles of Chris- 
tian Art is as necessary an appendage to a treatise 
on Christian Ethics as an examination of the prin- 
ciples of Christian Politics. 



Cli. XXV.] PROMISES OF GOD. 385 



CHAPTER XXV. 

We are now drawing to a close of this inquiry. We 
have seen what is the nature of the conditions im- 
posed upon man in the covenant of baptism, and 
which it is his part to fulfil. And now comes the 
question, What has God promised to fulfil on his 
part : 

And, first, it is to be observed, that what God 
gives is given mainly at once. The highest pri- 
vileges of the Church, the being made " members 
of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the 
kingdom of heaven" — the participation in the Holy 
Spirit, all are communicated in baptism. But still 
there is something wanting. They may be lost, 
and are lost often. And the promise of God is, 
that if we do our part in the covenant, He will so 
confer them on us, and so incorporate them with 
our souls, that no power shall be able to snatch 
them from us — " that neither death, nor life, nor 
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, 
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us 
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
Lord*' (Rom. viii. 38). Aristotle represents the 
virtuous life of man in much the same light. 
The very child must be taught the perfect law of 
goodness from his teacher ; he must possess the 
principle of obedience in perfection, — for it cannot 
exist imperfectly ; he must do what is right, other- 
wise he never can acquire the habit, !{*$. Now 
the struggle of his life is to acquire this habit; to 

L L 



386 PROMISES OF GOD. 

confirm and strengthen himself in all goodness ; to 
consolidate his principles ; to make sure his know- 
ledge. Without stability and firmness, to ponyuov, 
man's excellence is a dream that passes away. It 
is worthless. 

Now, it is evident that according as the Christian 
life is considered as the gradual acquisition of new 
blessings, or as only the stronger retention and de- 
velopment of blessings already possessed, the moral 
struggle which it involves will take an entirely dif- 
ferent character. And, practically, this is the case 
in the present day. Baptised Christians yet speak 
of their efforts to do right, as if they were endea- 
vouring to obtain the gift of the Holy Spirit for 
the first time, instead of clinging to it as a treasure 
already within them. They study Christian truth 
as if it was all new, and they had not already been 
taught their creed. They think it necessary to 
look out for a religious community with which to 
live, as if they had not already been placed in one 
at baptism. They propose to secure to themselves 
the love of God and the favour of Christ, as if it 
had not been imparted to them while they were 
lying in the cradle. And they ask for a sign of 
this love in some violent emotion, or miraculous 
interference, totally disdaining the sign already 
given to them in the water of the font. 

Now, it is evident that such a mistake must in- 
troduce into all our moral acts the most startling 
confusion and contradictions. It must misdirect our 
energies, distort our prayers, misinterpret the sub- 
sequent dealings of God, involve us in inextricable 
perplexities as to the acts of the Church. And 
such has been the case. It cannot be shewn more 
clearly than in the altered view now taken of the 
two solemn rites with which the ancient Church 
concluded the ceremony of baptism. 



CH. XXV. J CONFIRMATION. 387 

" Immediately," says Bingham, 1 " after the per- 
sons came up out of the water, if the bishop was 
present at the solemnity, they were presented to 
him, in order to receive his benediction ; which was 
a solemn prayer for the descent of the Holy Ghost 
upon such as were baptised. And to this prayer 
there was usually joined the ceremony of a second 
unction, and imposition of hands, and the sign of 
the cross." It was the rite of confirmation. And 
upon this followed another practice, which with our 
defective views of baptism, and of sacraments in 
general, will appear almost unintelligible — the ad- 
ministration of the Holy Eucharist even to infants. 
This, remember, was not a modern innovation. In 
the words of Bingham, 2 " It was that known prac- 
tice and custom in the ancient Church, of giving 
the Eucharist to infants, which continued in the 
Church for several ages. It is frequently men- 
tioned in Cyprian, Austin, Innocentius, and Genna- 
dius, writers from the third to the fifth century. 
Maldonatus confesses it was in the Church for six 
hundred years ; and some of the authorities just 
now alleged, prove it to have continued two or 
three ages more, and to have been the common 
practice beyond the time of Charles the Great." 

Here, then, we have distinctly declared the pre- 
cise nature of the gifts which God promises, and of 
the habit of mind with which we are to prepare our- 
selves to receive them. It was the gift of the Holy 
Spirit in greater measure — its deep and complete 
incorporation in our natural soul, so as to become 
one with us and we with it. It is not external ad- 
vantages, freedom from pain, sensible delight, know- 
ledge regarded as an end, honour, virtue, happiness, 
any thing either of selfish enjoyment or abstract 

1 Book xii. c. ]. 2 Book xii. 1. s. iii. 



388 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

good ; but a more complete and ensured possession 
of God himself. God is our good, the one object to 
fix our eye, the end to have always before us. In 
Him are summed up and included all other goods, 
which are but shadows and emanations of his per- 
fection. And he is our life, and life is our good. 
And our animal life is like our spiritual life. Each 
is implanted in us by God ; one at our birth, the 
other at our baptism. Each is unseen ; each com- 
municated to us through man ; each hung dependent 
on a frail external machinery, requiring on our parts 
the most anxious care, and on the part of God and 
his ministers the most watchful providence to pre- 
serve it for a day ; each is liable to be lost ; each 
capable of suspension, and capable of revival, by 
the care of others, but when once wholly gone, each 
beyond recovery ; and each requires nutriment and 
daily bread — the infant as well as the man. And 
while we live in our cradles, God provides for us 
fleshly and spiritual parents, who do not suffer us to 
perish, because we cannot provide it for ourselves, 
but prepare and administer it to us before we know 
any thing of its value or its necessity. And as our 
strength grows up, both parents alike — the parents 
of our souls as of our bodies — teach us to stretch 
out our hands, and utter prayers, and in some mea- 
sure to provide it for ourselves by our own exertions, 
because he that will not work must starve. And 
the nourishment of both is a sacrament. There is 
in each an outward sign and an inward power. It 
is not the outward bread, which we see and touch, 
that nourishes the body, but some secret impalpable 
mysterious substance, we know not what, buried and 
hidden in the outward substance, we know not how; 
or it may be only some secret power, which acts 
conjointly with it on the frame of man. But no 
chemist has ever yet extracted it, or placed it before 



CH. XXV.] THE HOLY COMMUNION. 389 

the eye in the shape of pure and abstract nutriment. 
And those who know the nature of human life, know 
that if such nutriment in such a shape could be ex- 
hibited, it would cease to be nutriment. It would 
not support life. For it cannot act upon the body 
without being combined with innutritious matter as 
with a " caput mortmain," an outward sign. And 
to nourish us, it must be absorbed into the body 
and incorporated with our pre-existent vitality. 
And how it is thus incorporated, no eye can tell. 
The process is carried on within us by the hand of 
God, not by the hand of man — a secret wonderful 
process, which pervades inanimate matter with ani- 
mating spirit, and secretes from one single fluid, 
tasteless, colourless, and, to human sense, without 
power or quality, all the various powers and quali- 
ties of the human body, carrying on, in its secret 
recesses, a wonderful manufactory of all kinds ; so 
that the utmost luxury of man can scarcely imagine 
a machine, or an operation of chemistry, or a struc- 
ture of art, which Nature, unseen by us, is not real- 
ising every day in the organic development of every 
animated frame. Look at that infant sucking at its 
mother's breast ; and then collect from the streets 
of London all your great artificers and mechanics, 
painters, and sculptors, architects and engineers ; 
and he will surpass them all. He is performing at 
this moment every one of their operations, with a 
dexterity, and accuracy, and perfection, which baf- 
fles even the conception of the highest intellects. 
He is building himself a house, in which his soul is 
to reside ; a house, not fixed to one spot, but capa- 
ble of moving about to any place, and adapting it- 
self to every climate. He not only fits together the 
masonry of his bones, but he makes the masonry it- 
self; a hard, solid, but light, concrete of artificial 
stone. He spins cordage, to thatch his head. He 

JL L 2 



390 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

weaves a most delicate tissue for his skin, at once 
impervious to wet from without, and pervious to it 
from within : no manufacturer has yet been able to 
solve this necessary problem. He constructs a tele- 
scope to see with; an ear-trumpet to hear with; a car- 
riage to ride on; a pantechnicon of mechanical instru- 
ments in the hand ; a self-repairing mill in his teeth ; 
a most curious system of water- works, pipes, pumps, 
fountains, and drains, by which he distributes the 
blood to every part of his mansion, on the most cor- 
rect principles of hydraulics. He will make an air- 
pump to ventilate it in his reservoir of the lungs ; a 
vast kitchen filled with stoves, ovens, bake-houses, to 
concoct his food, besides larders and presses to re- 
ceive it. He will defy any chemist to equal the 
menstruum which he invents and employs for the 
purpose of analysing and re combining it. At the 
same time that helpless infant is creating a series of 
engines of all kinds for raising weights, pulling cords, 
propelling bodies : branching out into innumerable 
springs, pulleys, levers, wheels, and valves, — all 
worked, like Mr. Brunei's block machinery, by one 
motive power, ivhich no one can see. He is con- 
structing drains and cloacae to carry of all that is 
superfluous or noxious. He is ready, if he breaks a 
bone, instantly to set to work and make a new con- 
crete, or marmoratum, to consolidate it again. And 
he is also moulding a statue ; hiding all this machi- 
nery under an exquisite figure of grace, beauty, and 
proportion, which it is the highest aim of modern 
art to study and repeat. He will paint himself with 
the delicacy of a Raphael, and the richness of a 
Titian. He will touch every line of his face with a 
minute and exquisite feeling, so that his mind may 
be seen through it as through a transparent veil. 
He will construct a whole language of signs, in the 
telegraphic play of the muscles, and the flexibility 



CH. XXV.] THE HOLY COMMUNION 391 

of the features, with which he will speak to his 
fellow-men with a most perspicuous, and moving, 
and intelligible eloquence. And he will fit up in 
his throat an orchestra of musical instruments, ca- 
pable of awakening every pulse of sound, full of life, 
expression, and feeling, without which all other in- 
struments are cold and insipid. And when all this 
has been done, he will transmit to others the same 
wonderful art, the same mysterious powers, and 
multiply and preserve them through an infinite se- 
ries of generations. All this he begins to do the 
moment the breath of life is infused into him. But 
without something else he cannot continue it — with- 
out food, his power departs, the spark becomes ex- 
tinct, the manufactory drops to ruin : and unseen, 
unexplained, uncomprehended, he takes from the 
hand of those whom Gocl has set to guard him, the 
mysterious symbols and vehicles in which the vital 
sustenance is embodied. He incorporates these with 
him in faith — he trusts the internal process, of which 
he can know nothing, to a hand of which he knows 
nothing, but which does work within it all those 
great ends and operations, by which his innumerable 
functions, the microcosm of the universe of his ma- 
terial frame, the church of his body, " with many 
members and one spirit,"' is supported and deve- 
loped. 

Who will dare to say that there is any thing 
strange or incongruous in that theory of our spi- 
ritual life which the Church pronounced, when, im- 
mediately the germ of life had been imparted, she 
administered new sustenance and food to it through 
the outward emblems of bread and wine ? — that 
theory, which the Catholic Church at this day re- 
tains, though with a dimmer apprehension and fainter 
belief, but which modern ignorance has rejected. 
And what has it substituted instead ? — a specula- 



392 THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

tion of spiritual vitality, nutrition, and growth, which 
believes life can be attained by self-agency, without 
being infused from without ; and can be preserved 
by exercise, and hunger, — by doing good works, and 
creating aspirations of desire, — without any fresh 
support analogous to the reception of food. I do 
not dare to enter farther into this solemn and mys- 
terious subject. But as before it was said, that the 
foundation of Christian Ethics must be laid in the 
sacrament of Baptism and the doctrine of baptismal 
regeneration, so let it now be asserted, that the 
whole superstructure rests on the sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper, and the real, spiritual, personal 
presence and communication of the blessed body 
of our Lord to those who rightly partake in it. 
Until once more the Catholic Church in this coun- 
try shall restore this awful mystery to its due pro- 
minence — until it makes prayer, and praise, and 
even right action, subservient to the reception of 
the Holy Communion, Christian Ethics will still re- 
main a vague, inconsistent, fluctuating chaos of con- 
tradictory principles and empty feelings. Men will 
continue to forget, as they have forgotten, that their 
real goodness is the goodness of Almighty God dwell- 
ing within them ; that their only life is his life ; that 
their true happiness is union with him ; that their 
virtue is in his virtue, and their power in his power; 
and that in obtaining this they have little share, but 
the absence and overcoming of resistance. They do 
not choose it, before it is given to them in baptism. 
They cannot afterwards procure it for themselves, 
without the ministration of the Church. When 
given, they cannot by themselves turn it to any ac- 
count : they know nothing of the mode in which it 
works. It is all a mystery. And they can do no- 
thing but submit themselves passively and obe- 
diently to the supernatural Hand. Think what a 



CII. XXV. J PRAYER. 393 

mighty difference lies between this moral frame of 
mind, and the eager, grasping, restless spirit, which 
imagines all things are to be done by itself, are within 
its own reach, depend on its own superintendence. 
What is the virtue of a diseased patient, who re- 
quires a surgical operation? It is to lie still, and 
do nothing ; to submit himself meekly, patiently, 
and unresistingly to another hand. Let him resist, 
or struggle, or grasp the knife himself, even with 
the best intention of aiding the operator, and the 
operation is marred. And so it is with man. If 
man does not struggle, God will do every thing. 
Check impatience, endure pain, overrule the tend- 
ency to move. Have faith in Him who is operat- 
ing, and all will be right. Energy, and free agency, 
and spontaneous power, you must have. Let it be 
directed in this way, not in striving to do for your- 
self what God only can do for you. 

And also it must be directed to prayer. As the 
creed was given to the baptised person before he 
was baptised, so the first words to be uttered after- 
wards were also taught him in the Lord's Prayer. 
Think what prayer is, and then you will understand 
its importance in a system of Ethics. The heathen 
knew little of it ; he could utter his own wants, give 
vent to an occasional burst of feeling, endeavour, as 
the Indian, to honour his gods with an almost inar- 
ticulate jargon of mysterious sounds ; and even this 
was no inconsiderable part of human virtue. But any 
thing like Christian prayer, seen in its full meaning, 
was beyond his reach. Aristotle knew nothing of 
it. Plato says much of religion, speaks eloquently 
on the duty of praise ; but says, and can say, little of 
prayer. But look to the early Church, and you will 
see that nearly its whole life and being consisted of 
prayer. Morning and evening, day and night, up- 
rising and down-sitting, going out and coming in — 



394 PEAYER. 

still there was prayer. Now we can understand easily 
the connexion between prayer and the supply of our 
wants, For it is not possible to see another person 
possessing what we desire, and able to bestow it on 
us, without our minds throwing themselves sponta- 
neously into the attitude of supplication. All the 
sophistry of metaphysics cannot prevent this, until 
there comes some positive inexorable declaration, 
that he of whom we ask will neither give nor listen. 
And then we sink into despair. But no such de- 
claration has come from God. All that he tells us 
of prayer — tells us by the expectation of our hearts, 
by our own secret sympathies with misery, by the 
experience of our fellow-men, by the prophecies of 
our hopes and our fears, and by his express revela- 
tions through the Church — all insist on prayer. 

And the very fact, on which the metaphysical 
speculation is built, that prayer is useless, because 
God is unchangeable, is false. God is not un- 
changeable, as these idle dreamers say. He changes 
with every change in the relations in which he stands 
to man, himself continuing immoveable. So the 
sun remains fixed in the centre of his system ; but 
with every motion of each planet, as one approaches 
and another recedes, — as one turns around it swiftly, 
another slowly, — as one brings before it seas and 
mountains, and another forests and plains, — the 
sun also varies with it, here diffusing more heat, 
and there less ; now shining in the noonday, now 
buried in midnight ; now rising up to the meridian, 
and now sinking into the shadows of evening ; now 
hid with, clouds, now dazzling with its brightness ; 
now diffusing life, and health, and fruitfulness, and 
now a famine or a plague. And yet it is still the 
same. Its sameness consists not in the identity of 
its operations independent of a change in the sub- 
ject which it affects, but in the very variableness of 



CII. XXV.] PRAYER. 395 

its operations corresponding with the variations of 
the subject : — so God is fixed, man changes ; and 
with every change of man, God changes likewise, 
according to his own immutable, undeviating, eter- 
nal laws. And one eternal law and condition for 
the communication of his love and blessing is, that 
the heart of the creature be humble, earnest, bent 
upward stedfastly and ardently, not trusting to it- 
self, but to its Maker, asking all things of Him, 
seeing all things in Him and Him in all things, 
longing for the continuance of his love, being al- 
ways in the attitude of prayer. So it is with men. 
Where there is no want there is no gift. Where 
there is want and prayer, even the common morals 
of the world make it the greatest of their sins — 
hard-heartedness and cruelty — to refuse. 

But, then, think how all the precepts and prin- 
ciples of Ethics are summed up in this one practice 
of prayer. If all our moral duties and moral rela- 
tions, as well as our physical existence, depend on 
the one relation between man and God, prayer — 
perpetual and universal prayer — is the only form in 
which such a relation can be acknowledged. If a 
sound intellectual belief is the basis of all goodness, 
see how the Church, in framing her prayers, and 
providing fixed forms for our devotions, has care- 
fully interwoven with them her creeds and articles, 
so that even if these were lost, we might still learn 
what we should believe in our minds, from the de- 
sires which we are taught to cherish in our hearts. 
If the right direction and mastery over our thoughts 
is the chief and first exertion of human virtue, 
where can we learn this better than by being called 
day after day, " at morning, and evening, and noon- 
day," into a holy place, amid solemn sights, away 
from the vanities of the world, and in the midst of 
graves and memorials of death, and there made to 



396 PKAYES. 

kneel down, as in the presence of God, and to 
fashion our wandering thoughts into conformity 
with the commands of his ministers ? 

Enforce this duty at fixed times, and you com- 
pel a habit of self-denial ; you create by practice a 
power of breaking off any action or contemplation 
in which we are engaged, the moment a positive 
command comes across to summon us away. Here 
is the whole duty of obedience. You substitute for 
the vain, feeble, inordinate desires of man, desires 
which can never deceive and never change, because 
they are sanctioned by God. You engrave deeper 
and deeper by repeated strokes, and burn into the 
mind indelibly, the great truths on which all its 
virtue and happiness depend, not only by repeating 
them in the ear, but by forcing the lips to repeat, 
and the gestures to acknowledge them, and the 
mind itself to take them in while it is withdrawn 
from other sights, and softened by the solemnities 
of places, by the quietude of holy buildings, by the 
awfulness of holy rites, and the sympathy of holy 
men. And this act, which is duty at first, as all 
virtue must be at the beginning, becomes happiness 
in the end, its own reward. For if happiness is 
union with God, prayer is the enjoyment of that 
union. It is the proof of its continuance, even the 
evidence of its existence ; for who can pray without 
the Spirit of God within him ? It consolidates and 
perpetuates it. It is the form in which are essen- 
tially comprised the two elements on which the en- 
joyment of that union depends ; namely, conscious- 
ness of our own infinite weakness, and faith in God's 
infinite power and infinite love. And when prayer 
is made in common, as it is required to be ; directly, 
as when we meet in the congregation : indirectly, 
even when we pray in our closet, and with only our 
hearts and not our bodies joined in the Church, here 



CII. XXV.] INTERCESSION. 397 

also are contained the great social principles of 
human communion, on which all individual virtues 
ultimately depend. As individuals, we are nothing ; 
and only as members of the Church are privileged 
to have access to God ; just as it is only as members 
of civil and domestic society that we can attain our 
natural perfection. And lastly, when this prayer 
takes, as it must take mainly, the form of inter- 
cession — for kings, and magistrates, and all who are 
in authority, for our brethren in distant lands, for 
all "who are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or 
any other adversity," for infants, and widows, and 
the traveller, and the captive — thinking not only of 
ourselves, and those who are to come, but even of 
the dead — blessing God for their departure in Christ, 
and looking forward to reunion with them in hea- 
ven — consider if here is not contained an epitome 
of our whole duty to man in all our earthly rela- 
tions — loyalty, patriotism, general benevolence, sym- 
pathy, mercy, the love of parents, the respect of 
society, the hopefulness of an eye looking forward 
to the blessings of future generations, the common 
love and sympathy which looks behind and beyond 
the grave, and binds together all successive ages in 
one gremd scheme of human affection and co-ope- 
ration. Could it be taught more effectually, prac- 
tised more correctly, enforced more earnestly and 
more safely, than by prayer that God himself would 
do for them all that we are bound to do for them 
ourselves ? And thus, as all human virtue and 
human happiness depend on two things, — one ex- 
ternal, the other internal, the aid of others, and ex- 
ertions of our own, — so in the sacrament of bap- 
tism, the ministration of the rite represents what is 
done for us by God through his Church ; and the 
bringing our children to it, or the coming to it our- 
selves as adults, represents what is due from our- 

M M 



398 CONFIRMATION. 

selves, in order to place ourselves within the pale of 
the Church, and to become possessed of its privi- 
leges. Omit either part, and the whole effect is lost. 
And when these privileges are once acquired, and 
we ask how they are still to be secured and retained, 
again the same two things are needful ; and the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper represents what is 
done for us by God, and prayer what is due from 
ourselves. Omit either, and the effect is lost. Apply 
them both, and all righteousness and holiness will 
follow of course. 

Neither must it be forgotten, that besides and 
previous to the solemn rite of the Lord's Supper, 
there was another ceremony practised by the an- 
cient Church, immediately after Baptism — the rite of 
Confirmation. Much of its significancy depends on 
this close connexion with baptism. For when thus 
practised, it could not be considered, as too many 
consider it now, simply as an opportunity of renew- 
ing vows made at baptism, and of taking formally 
upon ourselves obligations previously incurred for 
us by others, It appears to contain in it the type 
and germ of the social principles of the Church. 
Baptism brings us as individuals into union with 
Christ; but something else is wanted to express 
that union with Christ can only be obtained by 
union with his body, the Church. To enter into 
this question here, would be to anticipate a discus- 
sion which properly belongs to a distict branch of 
Christian Ethics — Christian Politics. I will only 
suggest three questions. Why, when the principle 
of spiritual life had been imparted to the infant at 
baptism — why renew and confirm it, and increase 
it, by another ceremony? Why confine the ad- 
ministration of this ceremony to the bishop only, 
and not entrust it to inferior officers ? And why 
express its internal efficacy by the imposition of 



CH. XXV.] CONFIRMATION. 399 

hands? Surely it was to imply that, besides Al- 
mighty God, the source of all wisdom and power, 
there is upon earth a delegated power in the person 
of his Church ; that to this delegated minister we 
owe, under God, not only the beginning of the mo- 
ral and spiritual blessings of Christianity, but their 
continuance and confirmation — that the prayers of 
the Church, as a body, are the great means of bring- 
ing down the favour of God not only upon the earth 
at large, but on the individual members of the 
Church — that she stands to those members as a 
parent to a child, blessing them with the same form 
and sign with which parents bless their children. And 
even this form itself, simple and obvious as it may 
seem, is full of meaning to one, who recognises in 
the human body the expansion and expression of 
the mind, and knows that every faculty and feeling 
within has its corresponding organ and lineament 
without. It is by the hands that we receive from 
others — that we hold fast for ourselves — that we 
impart to others whatever we possess. And thus 
the Church stands upon earth daily deriving her 
spirit from God, cherishing and preserving it against 
the assaults of enemies, transmitting it to future 
generations, and diffusing it over the earth. The 
hands are laid upon the head ; for the head is the 
noblest and dearest part of the body, in which the 
intellect is concentrated. When the Greeks would 
express affection, their expression was " beloved 
head!" (pixov niga,. And it is this of which the 
Church would possess herself, and through which 
she would act upon the body of mans affections 
and passions. The hands are imposed on it, as the 
child at baptism is taken into the arms of the 
minister, to shew that no grace can be obtained ex- 
cept by union with the Church. Fresh aids of the 
Holy Spirit, and extraordinary gifts, are promised 



400 CONFIRMATION. 

in this holy rite ; for though God's ordinary mer- 
cies are not checked by man's negligence, and the 
blessings of baptism may be hoped for even with 
ordinary means ; yet more than common graces and 
interpositions can only be obtained by more than 
common faith, and energy, and prayer, in the Church. 
And the rite is administered by the bishop, and the 
bishop only ; that as the Christian in Confirmation 
recognises his allegiance to the Church, he may 
recognise also its true Monarchical constitution. 

Such are some of the truths which seem involved 
in this ceremony, and which render it a necessary 
accompaniment to baptism. In this day we have 
suffered men to neglect it. Whether with this they 
have neglected the great truths which it embodied 
and shadowed out, unhappily need not be asked. 
But if God has been pleased to appoint that man 
shall be his instrument and agent in conveying his 
blessings to mankind, and we choose to slight and 
despise man, and insist on communicating with 
God, the Sovereign of the universe, without the in- 
tervention of his ministers — to hope for blessings 
from other channels invented by ourselves — to in- 
trude on him without introduction or permission — 
may it not be, that our very worship may become a 
profanation, and our prayers be turned into a curse? 



CH. XXVI.] PLEASURE. 40J 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

And now there remains one more question. 

Where, it may now be asked, is the happiness of 
the Christian? Where is that pleasure and enjoy- 
ment, without which ordinary minds have no con- 
ception of happiness, and which they indeed identify 
with it? And, without this, what promise is held 
out by God, worthy of the covenant into which we 
are brought with him ? 

I answer, then, that of pleasure — mere pleasure 
— of whatever kind, whether of the senses, or the 
fancy, or the affections, or the intellect, — the 
Church, like every other high school of Ethics, 
knows little. As an end, or motive, she knows no- 
thing of it. I do not say she does not give it, and 
secure it most amply ; but she does not put it for- 
ward as an object. Her view of pleasure is the same 
as that which the best Greek philosophy, and espe- 
cially Plato, has derived from a profound view of 
human nature. No high philosophy ever yet con- 
founded, as modern sentimentalists and sensualists 
have confounded, happiness with pleasure. Plea- 
sure is a feeling ; as a feeling it depends necessarily 
on something else — as heat depends on the applica- 
tion of fire, the sense of sweetness on a certain 
affection of the nerves. Therefore whatever value 
might be set upon it, there is something prior to it 
of more importance, and in which our real good 
must reside. Aristotle made this an action of the 
mind — contemplation, Qzu^ioc. He would not recog- 
nise the gratifications of the senses, because in these 

M M 2 



402 HAPPINESS. 

there is no exercise of the noblest part of man's 
nature, his thought, and intellect. There is no per- 
ception of relations, no consciousness of ideas, which 
are the proper subject of the reason and under- 
standing. Human happiness, with Aristotle, was 
the exercise of the noblest faculties of man on the 
noblest of subjects ; and his noblest faculty was rea- 
son, and the noblest subject of the reason was eter- 
nal, immutable truth. Christianity says the same. 
The real external good is truth, and the Author of 
truth, even God himself; and the happiness of man 
is faith, or the contemplation of God through the 
highest of all powers — the power of God's own 
Spirit ; and the contemplation of Him not merely, 
as Aristotle might have meant, abstractedly and in- 
tellectually, in his relation to Himself — but in his 
relations to man and to ourselves ; thus bringing 
into play our moral affections, as well as our intel- 
lect, and uniting practice and contemplation in one. 
And on such an energy, said Aristotle, would follow 
necessarily the purest pleasure. For all pleasure 
depending on some action, the purest pleasure would 
be essentially interwoven with the highest action. 
But the action, not the pleasure, is to be the object 
of our pursuit. 1 Plato slightly differed from him. 
He made the happiness of man consist in conform- 
ing himself to an external standard laid down for 
him by God ; 2 which standard was the nature itself 
of God. The comprehension of this standard, or, 
as a Christian would say, the knowledge of God, 
was with Plato the first of human goods, as God 
himself was the one and only good, from which all 
others flowed ; then came the human action by 
which our hearts, and wills, and understanding, 
were brought into conformity with this law, fxirpov ; 

1 Ethic. Nichom. lib. x. 2 Philebus. 



cii.xxvi.j happiness. 403 

and then the sense of delight with which this action 
must be attended. For all pleasure, Plato knew, 
was produced by the fulfilment of some want, the 
satisfaction of some desire, the reaching some end, 
after which we have been straining ; and thus with- 
out some outward limit, end, or rule, fixed for us as 
a standard for our action, and without some inter- 
nal effort to attain to it, and finally without success 
in the attainment — success attended with some diffi- 
culty, and enhanced by delay and doubt — there can 
be no pleasure. Water pleases not without pre- 
vious thirst, honours are valueless, except to the 
ambitious ; wealth has no charm to one who has 
riches ; possession is insipid, acquisition only is full 
of delight. And so also the Church speaks. She 
acknowledges One only True, Independent Good, 
God himself; from whom all other goodness flows 
and radiates. And human good she declares to be 
faith, the knowledge of God; and, secondly, obe- 
dience to Him, as to a law. And upon this she 
adds, that pleasure will necessarily follow. But it 
must be received, as Aristotle says, as an appendage, 
a crown, an additional unexpected gift, ETnWxn, 
not made the primary thought. She would take 
the mind of man out of itself, its own emotions, and 
its own affections. She would fix it on another 
Being, who is all perfection. She knows that the 
moment it turns away, and fastens on any other ob- 
ject, the charm is broken, and the connexion dis- 
solved. And to think of our own pleasure instead 
of God, destroys all pleasure ; for the pleasure de- 
pends on the contemplation of God. 

In the technical language of philosophy, Catho- 
lic Christianity is objective. Dissent, and heresy, 
and all false philosophy, is subjective. Catholic 
Christianity fixes its law of duty, and its object of 
affection, and its standard of truth, out of the human 



404 HAPPINESS. 

mind. The rest place them within it. And as the 
human mind is perpetually shifting, all law, and 
love, and truth, must soon disappear in such a float- 
ing quicksand. 

When a man is balancing himself on a rope — 
let us use a familiar illustration — it is necessary to 
play music to him. To this music he gives up his 
whole attention. He becomes absorbed in it ; and 
so long as it continues, or his attention remains 
fixed on it, so long the movements of his muscles 
run on into each other spontaneously and mechani- 
cally, adjusting his centre of gravity without his 
knowing how, and preserving him in safety. But 
let the music cease, or let him cease to think of it, 
and begin to think of himself, and to regulate his 
muscles by reason, and he drops to the ground. 

And so it is with the happiness of man. Let 
him continue to fix his eye on an object external to 
himself, on that perfect Being who only can fill his 
affections, and the pleasure will accompany the con- 
templation naturally and necessarily. Let him think 
of the pleasure, and it instantly vanishes. Pleasure 
and goodness are inseparably connected ; but con- 
nected like the convex and the concave sides of a 
line. They cannot be separated, but they are wholly 
distinct ; and if a man will attempt to walk on the 
concave, instead of the convex side, he will fall and 
break his neck. 

But the Church goes still farther. She not only 
refuses to make pleasure the promised end and ob- 
ject of her members, but she promises them, instead, 
positive pain. Over the entrance of her temple she 
raises a solemn warning — almost a threat — a re- 
peated denunciation, that they who would become 
the servants of her Lord and Master, and partake 
of his privileges, and be united to his nature, must 
take up their cross. And indeed this endurance of 



CH. XXVI.] CHASTENING OF PAIN. 405 

pain is the essential condition of human excellence. 
To bear cold and heat, hunger and thirst, sickness 
and want ; to stand firm against the yearnings of 
desire ; to despise shame ; to stifle appetite ; to 
crush, with a hand of iron, every rebellious move- 
ment of the heart, — has been the precept and the 
boast of all elevated philosophy since philosophy 
first existed. And why ? Because for man to be- 
come an object of our admiration, he must have 
power ; and the only proof of real power is the 
mastery of his own inclinations, and the voluntary 
submission to pain, when pleasure is within his 
reach. Because he must be a spontaneous agent, 
and yet is in all things in the hands of God ; and 
one thing only is left which he can call his own 
— his suffering. Because he is sinful and frail, and 
as such cannot be respected; and only one mode 
remains by which, in the absence of goodness, 
nature commands our respect — our pity at well- 
borne pain. Because without pain endeavouring to 
drag us aside, there would be no deliberate choice, 
no prudence, no preference of the future to the pre- 
sent, no reason ; and without an exercise of reason 
man's virtue is not perfect. Because to be united 
with God, we must be like to God ; and God has 
been pleased to set before us, for his inscrutable 
purposes, his own Son in the likeness of man, volun- 
tarily bearing our sins and sufferings for our redemp- 
tion upon the cross. Because man's heart is full of 
life and buoyancy, hasty, rash, and impetuous, and 
cannot be brought to coolness and temperate sobriety 
without the chastening of pain. Because he is a sin- 
ful being, full of sinful appetites, and with sin pain 
is necessarily connected ; we may not see how, or 
why, but that it is and should be so connected, both 
our own conscience warns, and the experience of 
each day proves. Because, it might seem, that as 



406 PLEASURE ESSENTIALLY 

the flesh is the mysterious seat of his guilt, so it must 
also be the seat of his punishment; and as sin is 
caused by pleasure, so it must be worn out and cru- 
cified by pain. Because no where is man more ele- 
vated, more spiritualised, more detached from the 
encumbrance of his body, and approximated to a 
heavenly nature, than when, with anguish and suf- 
fering weighing him down, he can still command his 
thoughts, rule his affections, determine his actions, 
without swerving to the right hand or the left. And 
because if he cannot bear pain, he cannot resist 
temptation, and must succumb to vice, which always 
has pleasure in her hand. Pain, therefore, and the 
privilege of bearing pain, and grace to bear it well, 
is the first promise of God, the first constituent of 
human happiness ; and they who will not or cannot 
accept it at the beginning of their course, must be 
content to lose that which follows at the end — plea- 
sure. For in the end pleasure does come, infinite, 
undying, unwearying, unexhausted, unappreciable 
by the human thought — " which eye hath not seen, 
nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart 
of man to conceive." But it will come to us of it- 
self, without our seeking. If we seek it, we shall 
not find it. If we make it our object, it will elude 
our grasp. It is not our good, but only an append- 
age to our good, fixed to it as a shadow to a sub- 
stance. Without the substance, the shadow cannot 
exist ; and when we lose the substance, the shadow 
vanishes also. 

One thing only may be remarked, that it is no 
strange incoherent appendage. It is not as if a 
child were promised the pleasure of eating an apple 
in reward for learning its lesson ; or as when the en- 
joyment of health follows on the practice of temper- 
ance. It is essentially, intrinsically, wrapt up in the 
exercise of our virtue, of faith in contemplation, of 



CH. XXVI.] CONNECTED WITH HAPPINESS. 407 

obedience in practice. It is part of the same action; 
and only does not accompany the action from the first 
because until after repeated actions we have not yet 
extinguished the opposite temptation, or brought 
our thoughts round to the true object. What is 
man's wisdom, but the knowledge and contemplation 
of God, as being himself possessed by God ? What 
is the sum of his affections, but love to God, as to 
the Being to whom he belongs? What is his strength, 
but this consciousness of being able to do all things 
in God? What is his holiness and goodness, but 
the presence of God within him ? What is his duty, 
but to realise this presence and obey its laws ? And 
what is his pleasure, but the same act of realising it, 
the same process of contemplation ; just as the plea- 
sure of an artist consists in contemplating his work ; 
as the delight of a benevolent man is wrapt up in be- 
holding the comfort of the beings whom he has re- 
lieved ; as the satisfaction of any desire is the attain- 
ment of an end, conformity to a standard? And 
thus, in another life, we need not ask whether the 
senses will be opened to new enjoyments in heaven 
— whether the eye, and ear, and taste, and touch, 
will be made avenues to new luxurious emotions — 
whether the intellect will be satiated with new dis- 
coveries — whether the affections will be expanded 
to embrace more enjoyable objects. So long as 
God is before us, infinite in power, wisdom, and 
goodness, and yet looking down upon us, as his frail 
and imperfect creatures, as beings united with him- 
self — and of this union we are conscious, — so long 
there must be in the heart a well-spring of joy and 
delight, which nothing can dry up and nothing em- 
bitter. Our whole existence must be luxury ; our 
whole being one thrill of delight. Such, then, are 
the duties and happiness of a Christian who has 
acted like a Christian. 



408 SIN AFTER BAPTISM. 

But what is the duty and proper frame of mind 
with which a man who, instead of keeping this cove- 
nant of his Baptism, has perpetually broken it, should 
walk through the remainder of his life ? Suffering, 
we have seen, must have been his lot, even had he 
remained without actual sin in himself. Whatever 
might have been the case in Paradise — and even there 
self-denial was required, and the endurance of absti- 
nence, — on earth, as men now are placed, they must 
suffer. But the suffering of the innocent is one 
thing, and the suffering of the guilty another. To 
walk boldly, manfully, and perse veringly, under the 
cross which God has laid upon us, without shame 
or murmur, or fear, with an open front and an up- 
lifted eye, is the privilege of the good Christian, 
whose vow of baptism is not yet broken. To walk 
under the same cross, but with a ten-fold burden, 
broken-hearted, humbled, degraded, with only not 
despair ; fearing even where there is no fear ; doubt- 
ing in the midst of light ; sorrowing with a perpetual 
sorrow ; and yet still clinging to his Lord, who has 
not yet abandoned him, so long as he can bear the 
cross at all — this is the privilege, the sole remaining 
privilege, and good, and virtue, and happiness of 
a penitent. And which of us is not a penitent ? 
Which of us can look back to our infancy, and if 
the white robes which then we wore were brought 
before us now, as the ancient Church would have 
brought them forth, would not blush and weep over 
their defilement ? And therefore sorrow is the life of 
a Christian, as Christians now live. Tears, and peni- 
tence, and self-privation, and mortification of pride, 
and a melancholy which is not misery, must be 
our daily devotion. Laughter and merriment, and 
comfort, can have little place among criminals who 
have once been pardoned, and have again sinned, 
and are now all but judged and condemned again. 



CH. XXVI.] SIN AFTER BAPTISM. 409 

The language will sound harsh ; and many will 
fear that, if carried out, it would encourage morose- 
ness, despondency, and a morbid asceticism, which 
would unfit us for the duties of the world, and 
darken the whole course of our existence, and su- 
persede the promises of the Church, and even con- 
vert the gospel of peace and comfort into a mes- 
sage of fear and anger. But the truth is not to be 
suppressed, because an uninstructed mind is liable 
to pervert it. Let us remember who are the cha- 
racters to whom it is applied. Look round on the 
world, and trace the effects even of a single crime on 
• the constitution of the mind, as well as on society. 
Consider how much mischief has been done by 
the irregular, fanatical movements even of well- 
intentioned men, whose minds have been shaken 
and rent by previous sins. Think how much better 
it were that such men should always carry about 
with them a humbling, awful sense of past faults, 
and even of future danger. Recollect that this very 
sorrow carries with it its own balm, and this very 
fear is the surest ground of hope. Think if it be 
possible to magnify the privileges of Baptism, with- 
out magnifying the danger of neglecting them ; or 
to rouse men to energy in standing firm, and ad- 
vancing on their duty, without a corresponding 
alarm at the possibility of falling. There is to be 
no despair, and no selfish, indolent, sickly sorrow ; 
but a sorrow which prompts to action, which makes 
us vigilant, earnest, patient against future failings, 
which never pronounces on the future — neither joy- 
fully, as if safety were certain, nor miserably, as if 
it were lost. The confession which every day is 
put into our mouth at our entrance into the church, 
is the proper language, alas ! of almost every Chris- 
tian, especially in this day of coldness, carelessness, 
and self-indulgence. And the more we enter into 



410 CONCLUSION. 

its spirit, the more we shall frame ourselves to that 
temperate, meek, gentle, obedient, and earnest, but 
saddened tone of mind, which becomes such beings 
as we are, and with which even external Nature in 
this present ruined world seems most to sympathise 
and accord. 

And with this warning I will close the book. 
Remember you, the young, who have read it, that 
its end is not knowledge, but practice. Do not 
think, that to have read any book through will 
profit you even intellectually, unless you apply its 
principles, expand its hints, balance its statements, 
test its assertions by an exercise of your own mind. 

To read, is one thing — to study and learn, an- 
other. My object has been to supply you with 
materials for study ; to remind you, when exercising 
your reason on the first of all sciences, of great and 
holy truths, which other men, calling themselves 
Christians, have long set aside from their theories of 
morals and philosophy ; to bring you once more 
under the eye and the hand of the Church when 
you are studying the nature of man, as well as when 
you study the revelations of God; and to remind 
you of the same great truths, which you learn as the 
first lesson of your childhood in your Catechism 
and Creed, that there is one God, the Lord and 
Maker of all things, — and one Lord Jesus Christ, 
the Saviour of all mankind, — and one Holy Spirit, 
whom He imparts to his chosen people, — and one 
Church, in whose bosom that people is born and 
nourished ; — and that unless you obey that Church, 
to be a member of it is only greater condemnation ; 
and without membership with the Church, you have 
no share in the Holy Spirit ; and without share in 
the Holy Spirit, no part in Christ ; and without 
part in Christ, no union with God; and without 
union with him, no strength, power, goodness, virtue, 



CH. XXVI.] CONCLUSION. 41 1 

righteousness, wisdom, purity, or life or light — all 
is darkness, past, present, and future. And they 
who grope about in it, as the unhappy men who 
reason of justice, and judgment, and truth, without 
a word of Him who is the source of all, — are but 
blind guides leading the blind, and both will fall 
into the pit. May God save us from falling with 
them! 




INDEX. 



Aristotle makes reason an essential element of goodness, 
196; makes all moral acts aim at an end, 201 ; where in- 
dividuality placed by, 159 ; recognises plurality in unity 
in the mind, 257 ; recognises predestination, 214; distin- 
guishes reason and understanding, 287; makes metaphy- 
sics necessary, 300; his opinion on creeds, 301 ; his logic, 
320 ; his view of art, 383 ; his view of happiness, 402, 

Art, branch of morals, 383 ; modern art poor, 384. 

Association, law of, 187. 

Baptism, present ignorance respecting, 210; places man in a 
new position, 210; forms used in, 211, 167, 147, 267, 387 ; 
a burial of the old man, 214 ; cleanses from original sin, 
217; what symbolised by, 218; names of, 218; value of 
infant, 236 ; nature of promise made in, 241 ; its bles- 
sings unseen, 242 ; regeneration in, 210 ; perplexing con- 
sciousness of a double nature, 212; false view of, 386; 
sin after, and how to be repented of, 408, 409. 

Books, use of, in instruction, 3 ; unable to instruct by them- 
selves, 1, 2; by themselves not adequate guarantees of 
truth, 49; importance of, in preserving truth, 51. 

Catholic, the, his controversy with Socinians, 332 ; with Pa- 
pists, 333 ; Church, its nature, 28 ; a witness, 32 ; its au- 
thority superior to all others, 334 ; the test of truth, 381. 

Charity, how restricted by the Church, 365. 

Chivalry, mixture of religion and love, 252. 

Church, mystery of, 15; testimony of, 17 ; necessary for in- 
struction, 18; criterion of true, 19, 20; adherence to 
hereditary, 23 ; ground of authority, 24 ; commission, 26 ; 
power of, 27 ; origin of, 28; Catholic, 29; everlasting, 30 ; 
doctrines of, not invented by man, 30; differs from Ro- 
manism and dissent, 32 ; alone has right to educate, 27 ; 
polity of Catholic, 50; only a witness, 51; has handed 
down the truth, 52; reason for receiving the testimony of, 
61; constituted the antagonist of evil, 162; its whole 
language obedience, 166; offers fixedness, 177; does not 
promise liberty, but obedience, 178 ; at present humbled, 
239 ; power claimed by, 247 ; working a daily miracle, 
N N 2 



414 INDEX. 

248 ; commission of, to be proved by historical testimony, 
250 ; solves a problem, 279 ; exercises more than exter- 
nal influence, 279 ; imparts the Holy Spirit to man, 281 ; 
treats all men with respect, 301 ; gives power to regulate 
thoughts, 309 ; illustration of the body, 325 ; reconciles 
moral relations, 365 ; reverence of early Church for 
prayer, 394. 

Confirmation administered after baptism, 387 ; contains the 
social principles of the Church, 398 ; confined to the bi- 
shop, 398 ; its form, 399 ; its meaning, 399 ; its political 
nature, 400 ; consequences of neglecting it, 400. 

Conscience prohibitory, 360; its authority that of God, 361. 

Continuity, law of, 187. 

Covenant, mystery of, 268 ; implies two independent agents, 
268 ; and two mutually dependent, 268 ; of man with na- 
ture, 287. 

Creation, process of, 313, duality the law of, 81 ; from num- 
bers, 319 ; false theories of, 324. 

Creed, first condition of a covenant, 287 ; Athanasian, in na- 
ture, 111, 133; first thing taught in baptism, 289 ; its 
nature, 289 ; how taught, 290 ; conditions required for 
learning, 294 ; to be received wholly, 296 ; connexion with 
science, 304; trunk of all science, 309; Athanasian, its 
connexion with physical science, 317; required in bap- 
tism, 329; vow of believing, 329; how connected with 
religion, 349; Athanasian, basis of Church morality, 347. 

Cross, type of animal world, 324; typified in Scripture, 324. 

Deduction, definition of, 120 ; often despised, 120 ; process 
of, 121 ; a proper mode of studying, 122 ; why so, 122. 

Desire generally praised, 201 ; reasons for suspecting it, 201 ; 
heathen ethics aimed at, 201, Christians abandon, 202; 
characteristics of, 202 ; essentially selfish, 203 ; heathen 
system full of, 204; two heads of, 208; variety of, 219 ; 
co-ordinate with evil, 219 ; always of one object, 220 ; in- 
finite and insatiable, 230; natural desire intended to be 
fulfilled, 232 ; desire of infinity, how realised, 232. 

Discovery, process of, 316. 

Distinction first law of creation, 104: universe built upon, 
104; prior to union, 103; beauty dependent on, 105; 
pleasing to God, 107 ; not the cause of persecution, 308; 
necessary condition for preserving truth, 113; when mis- 
chievous, 113; of schools necessary to gain knowledge, 
114; probable uses of, 114. 

Doubt can be rejected, 331 ; destroyer of truth, 331. 

Duties, difficulty in reconciling, 355 ; origin of sense of 273; 
theory of moral, 338. 



INDEX. 415 

Eclecticism prevalent in France, 78 ; process of, 79 ; evil of, 
79 ; contemptuous towards other systems, 79 ; another 
form of rationalism, 80 ; under certain conditions compa- 
tible with Christianity, 80 ; in what sense adopted by the 
fathers of the Church, 80; full of inconsistencies, 8J ; 
contrary to the natural law of creation, 81 ; vain and pre- 
sumptuous, 89 ; abrogates revelation 90 ; cannot succeed, 90 

Education, conditions of, 34; not in the power of man, 35 ; 
duty of man, 36 ; revelation necessary in, 37 ; no right to, 
except in the Church, 37 ; must not prescribe too much, 
208 ; commences in the intellect, 309; difference of hea- 
then and Christian, 128; how assisted by forms, 136 ; to 
be founded on baptism, 266 ; modern, absurdity of, 303. 

Ethics, connexion with Catholic Church, 33; science of edu- 
cation, 33 ; differences between it and Catholic Christi- 
anity, 41 ; resemblances, 43 ; Greek ethical philosophy, 
why valuable, 43 ; originally derived from revelation, 44; 
to be taught by a school, 47 ; evidence of revelation, 60 ; 
ought to be studied cautiously, 60 ; science of the mind, 
63 ; how to be studied in connexion with Christianity, 10] ; 
general rules for studying, 116 ; science of, not to be in- 
troduced into Christianity, except for practical purposes, 
117 ; extent of, not to be limited, 123; comprehends all 
science, 125; why its range was limited, 126; principles 
of, implied in the varied forms of baptism, 146 ; chief dis- 
tinction between the heathen and Christian, 211 ; con- 
nexion with the sacraments, 392. 

Eucharist administered to infants, 387; analogy of, 391 ; im- 
portance in ethics, 392. 

Evil, origin of, a fundamental problem, 147 ; modes of account- 
ing for, 148; all schools agree in recognising, 149; a power 
150; a spirit, 150; a person, 150; personality of, is the 
peculiarity in the Catholic doctrine, 151, 154; so recog- 
nised by God, 155 ; practical effect of such a doctrine, 156; 
how reconciled with the omnipotence of God, 157 ; prac- 
tical, 159 ; implies possession, 161 ; the Church the anta- 
gonist, of, 162 ; recognised by the baptismal service, 163. 

Exorcism form of, 146 ; preceded baptism, 146 ; testimonies 
to the practice of, 147 ; cut off because abused, 147 ; not 
essential to the sacrament of baptism, 147 ; is the answer 
to the origin of evil, 148 ; implies possession, 158. 

External power, two heads of, 161 ; a fact of consciousness, 
164; enters into every idea, 165; a law, 165; recognised 
in every act of the mind, 16S ; necessity of obeying it, 1 68 ; 
human excellence consists in eonformitv to it, 170; fixed, 



416 INDEX. 

171 ; necessary to engage affection, 229 ; cannot change 
the head, 277. 

Faith not dangerous ; value of, 22 ; to be accompanied with 
understanding, 24; necessary in all systems, 45; natural 
to man, 47 ; want of, followed by credulity, 47 ; in one 
person necessary to the comprehension of truth, 86 ; im- 
plies participation in the Divine nature, 240 ; capacious, 
292 ; necessary for knowledge, 294 ; given by God, 295 ; 
the happiness of man, 402. 

Fixedness necessary to law, 172 ; not to be found in the mind, 
] 73 ; want of it a sign of falsity, 172 ; its presence a sym- 
ptom of good, 173 ; to be found in the external world, 
J 73 ; why not found in man, 174; vain endeavour to ob- 
tain it in the mind, 175 ; cannot last there, 176 ; species 
of unity, 221. 

Forms, importance of, 129 ; number of in Jewish law, 129 ; 
in civil society, 129; meaning of, 130; why destroyed, 
130; connexion with ethics, 131 ; different opinions con- 
cerning, 131 ; what class of men dislike them, 133 ; con- 
tempt for, how ending, 134 ; true theory of, 135 ; use in ex- 
hibiting the mind, 135 ; in maintaining truth, 136 ; in pre- 
serving the meaning of truth, 137; in giving certainty, 
138 ; impressive, 139 ; employed by the Church, 140 ; na- 
tural development of spirit, 141 ; natural and instinctive, 
141; instruments of power, 142; of conventional, 143 ; 
conditions of their power, 143; when necessary, 144; chief 
instruments in the education of the Church, 145 ; many cut 
off at the Reformation, 145 ; the subject of science, 311. 

God, man not made to be, 225 ; man desires to be, 225 ; why 
man cannot be, 226 ; why to be happy he must be, 230 ; 
man must not possess, but be possessed by, 235 ; author 
of all good, 240 ; constantly communicates with man 
through man, 240 ; communicated to man through bap- 
tism, 243 ; proofs of it, 243; author of creation, 313 ; his 
relation to man, 357 ; his will the one rule of duty, 358 ; 
his nature, not his arbitrary rule, the foundation of morals, 
376 ; his promises, 385 ; in what sense mutable, 395. 

Goodness, its definition, 374. 

Government, witness of God, 12, 16 ; resolution necessary to 
give them authority, 52. 

Greek theory of sculpture, 200 ; sects, their character, 207 ; 
source of their knowledge, 296. 

Happiness, Christian, what, 401 ; Plato's view of, 402; Aris- 
totle's view of, 402 ; in Christianity objective, 403 ; hap- 
piness not pleasure, 387. 



INDEX. 417 

Heathens in -what sense good, 276; how prepared for Chris- 
tianity, 345. 

Imagination, exercise of it pleasant, 189; easy, 190; indulges 
in pleasurable ideas, 191; invents things more perfect than 
reality, 191; delights in infinity, 192; seat of sinful ten- 
dencies, 195; first duty to check it, 196 ; bad, what, 196. 

Incarnation, doctrine of, connected with science, 318. 

Individuality not lost in Christianity, 254. 

Induction, definition of, 120; distinguished from deduction, 
120; pleasing to young men, 120; process the same as 
deduction, 120; process of, 121 ; commences with hypo- 
thesis, 121. 

Infants, Christian education commenced in, 5; naturally sub- 
ject to God's wrath, 5 ; regarded by man with love, 6 ; 
capabilities of good and evil, 127; taught a creed, 292 ; 
operations of, 390. 

Infinity, necessary for human happiness, 142 ; of the human 
mind, 230 ; the law of imagination, 192 ; desire for, a proof 
of man's greatness, 232. 

Justification, how accomplished, 258 ; analogy of, in nature, 
259. 

Law, positive, mischief of abandoning, 97 ; stimulates desire, 
193; properly not creative but prohibitive, 207 ; implies a 
lawgiver, 245 ; liberty not absence of, 27 1 ; all morality 
under positive laws, 363. 

Liberty, life a struggle to attain, 160; in vain attempted, 161 ; 
essentially connected with goodness, 162; how far found 
in man, 267 ; necessary for love, 270 ; the world a machine 
for creating, 271 ; nature of, 272. 

Life, idle speculations on, 326; how it acts, 313. 

Logic, the effect of, 320; character of, 321. 

A670?, doctrine of, connected with philology, a source of hea- 
then truth, 296. 

Love, the mode of realising the desire for infinity, 232 ; effi- 
cacy of, 233 ; implies reverence, 233 ; aggrandises its ob- 
ject, 234; humble, 236; obedience follows on, 251 ; and 
zeal, 232 ; Aristotle's notion of, 259. 

Madness in sleep, 306. 

Man by nature polluted, 215 ; represented by Christianity as 
degraded, 253 ; united to God by baptism, 253 ; retains his 
individuality, 254 ; placed under laws at his birth, 271 ; at 
first a machine, 272; how self-condemned, 273; no one 
without sin, 277 ; placed here apart from God, 281; placed 
in a covenant with nature, 286 ; his life full of inconsist- 
encies, 292. 

Matter, its connexion with spirit, 313; a type of spirit, 313. 



418 INDEX. 

Metaphysics necessary to knowledge, 300; analogy of doc- 
trinal theology, 303; why studied by the Greeks, 318. 

Mind not inactive, 35, 186 ; origin of motion, 63 ; shifting, 
173 ; must be conformed to an external law, 170 ; rebel- 
lious, 180 ; nature of evil tendency in, 186 ; general move- 
ment of, mechanical, 188 ; requires to be taken out of it- 
self, 226 ; must work unconsciously, 226 ; a mystery of 
the Trinity contained in, 256 ; how treated by moderns, 
305 ; reflects the Creator, 328 ; proper objects of moral ap- 
probation, 336; characteristics of, 353 ; not wholly me- 
chanical, 307 ; how far mechanical, 306. 

Moral, common meaning of, 124, 185 ; power necessary to the 
intellect, 307 ; different senses of, 338; implies relation be- 
tween two persons, 339; different from intellectual, 340; 
sense, when least acute, 343; relations discoverable by in- 
tellect, 345 ; relations, their origin, 350 ; their species, 352 ; 
sense, when keenest, 372 ; sentiments, how formed, 372. 

Motives, secondary, 343. 

Multitude, generally ignorant and bad, and requiring to be edu- 
cated, 96 ; one test of sound doctrine to believe so, 97 . 

Mutability of moral sentiment, how explained, 380. 

Mystery of infant baptism, 5 ; proof of revelation, 27 ; Chris- 
tianity to remain as, 117; salutary, 118; necessary to 
satisfy the human mind, 119 ; all truth a, 124. 

Numbers of Pythagoras, 319 ; how interpreted by ancients, 
319; Plato's notion of, 319. 

Obedience, principle of, runs through Christianity, 166 ; all 
excellence consists in, 170; recognised by all schools, 
170; vow of, 179; why a duty, 368; most intelligible, 
373 ; constituting virtue, 381. 

Objectiveness characteristic of Christianity, 403. 

Obligation, moral, the nature of, 359; summed up in obedience 
to God, 367 ; analysis of, 368. 

Old man, how described in Scripture, 212 ; man longs to be 
freed from, 212 ; life an effort to escape from, 213 ; Plato's 
view of, 213 ; destroyed by baptism, 213. 

Opinion, man responsible for, 66 ; partly not in our power, 
66 ; how far in our power, 66 ; errors of, when immoral, 
68 ; error arises from carelessness, 69. 

Pain stimulates the imagination, 193 ; sometimes acts like 
fascination, 193 ; promised by Christianity, 404; to bear 
it, noble, 405 ; reasons why necessary, 405 ; followed by 
pleasure, 406. 

Pantheism, how distinct from Christianity, 314. 

Parents, witnesses of God, 12, 16 ; revelation necessary to 
give them authority, 39. 



INDEX. 419 

Person, personality of evil, difference of persons and things, 
151 ; connexion of, with rights and duties, 152 ; definition 
of, 152; connexion with passion, 153; how known, 155 ; 
how formed, 280 ; three kinds of, 341. 

Plato, how he roused men to desire truth, 223; would extin- 
guish self-love, 244 ; recognises a plurality in unity in the 
mind, 257 ; causes assigned by him for human goodness, 
277; he recognises predestination, 284; his doctrine of a 
Trinity, 298, 320 ; his opinion on creeds, 301 ; his view of 
theology, 309 ; his ideas, 311; considered virtue a science, 
350 ; founded all morality in the attributes of God, 364 ; 
his innate ideas, 370 ; his view of happiness, 402. 

Pleasure, how facilitates association, 189; peculiarly attached 
to the operations of the fancy, ] 89 ; the result of bodily 
emotion, 195 ; how mixed with pain, 273; not happiness, 
401 ; not promised by the Church, 401 ; how connected 
with happiness, 403. 

Plurality necessary for unity, 224 ; instance of, 355 ; how to 
be reconciled with unity, 355. 

Politics, Christian, 381. 

Pollution, natural to man, 215 ; wiped off in baptism, 215 ; is 
communicated by contagion, 216; sense of, impairs man's 
power, 217. 

Possession, nature of, 158 ; asserted by the Catholic Church, 
159 ; a fact in human nature, 159. 

Power, how shewn by self-denial, 274 ; not natural to man, 

275 ; not capable of being generated by external influence, 

276 ; a thing absolute in itself, 278 ; necessary for good- 
ness, 279 ; in man, how reconcilable with the existence of 
God, 279; flows from the Holy Spirit, 280 ; what kind re- 
quired, 393. 

Prayer, the Lord's, taught at baptism, 393: its importance in 
ethics, 393; not contrary to reason, 394 ; contains precepts 
and practice, 395 ; stated, its use, 396; happiness of, 396 ; 
social, its value, 397 ; intercessory, its ethical use, 397 ; 
exercise of power, 398. 

Predestination, how reconcilable with free agency, 281 ; how 
asserted by the Church, 282 ; how to be taught, 282; how 
stated in the articles, 283 ; men endeavour to evade, 283, 
recognised in all schools, 284 ; results of it, 285 ; neces- 
sary to be enforced, 284. 

Rationalism prevalent in Germany, 64; cloaked under an ad- 
miration of truth, 64 ; danger of, 70 ; process of, 70; con- 
nected with notion of progress, 73; contempt for anti- 
quity, 74 ; confounds the reason of the child and the man, 
75 ; prophecy of, 76. 



420 INDEX. 

Reality, distinction between it and apparent good, 377; how 
secured, 378 ; revelation necessary to, 380. 

Reasoning natural, 54 ; necessary for teachers, 55 ; good in 
itself, 57 ; law of reason is unity. 87 ; how opposed to 
truth, 87 ; proper office in art, 208. 

Reformation, origin of the crimes of, 205 ; English, how su- 
perior to others, 207. 

Relations, all knowledge consists in knowledge of, 101, 312; 
to be kept distinct, 101; of God toman, 269; between 
good and evil not destructible, 274 ; of God to man typi- 
fied by relations of man to man, 344 ; ignorance of, 346 ; 
mystery of, 349 ; the ideas of, their origin, 349 ; to God 
the type of all others, 356. 

Responsibility, how created, 272. 

Sacrament, life supported by, 387. 

Sciences, division of, 310. 

Senses, evidence of, important, 138 ; by whom invalidated, 
138; testimony of, recognised by Christianity, 139; influ- 
ence on the intellect, 3. 

Sceptics recognise an external standard of truth in nature, 
199. 

Self, the primary object of most men, 225 ; self-love, nature 
of, 225 ; must be abandoned, 244 ; abandonment of it a 
miracle, 245 ; how renounced by Christians, 366. 

Sin, account of, 195 ; called the imagination of the heart, 195 ; 
its seat in the thoughts, 195; stimulated by animal sensa- 
tion, 195 ; error and carelessness, 196 ; unreality and plea- 
sure, marks of, 202; original, 217; no obstacle to the 
ministration of man, 240 ; nor to the grace of God, 248 ; 
consciousness of, necessary to man's happiness, 255; how 
covered, 260 ; how to be resisted, 264. 

Socinians, their creed false and blasphemous, 331 ; how we 
should deal with a Deist, 331. 

Slave, man born to be a, 230 ; Apostles called themselves, 
167 ; has no rights, 362. 

Sophists made each man the measure of all things, 199 ; of 
the day, where in error, 289. 

Space no sign of greatness, 249. 

Spontaneity, nature of, 189 ; cause of, 1S9 ; necessary quality, 
in objects of affection, 227 ; different degrees of, 228 ; not 
given at birth, 271. 

Stoics trace the mischief of imagination to pleasure, 199 ; ex- 
tinguished feeling, 362. 

Struggle, how symbolized anciently in baptism, 179; life a, 
179; Christian, J 80; enters into every thing, 181 ; two 



INDEX. 421 

heads of, 182; which good, 185 ; ethics made life, one of 
desire, 204 ; Christianity a defensive, 206; characteristics 
of, defensive, 206. 

Subjectiveness characteristic of heresy and false philosophy, 
404. 

Superstition better than indifference, 147. 

Sympathy enters into our moral sense, 370. 

Syncretism prevalent in England, a mixing together of things 
which ought to be kept distinct, 91 ; condemned by God, 
91 ; object of, twofold, 93 ; to nnd authority for opinions, 
93 ; or to escape from polemics, 93 ; Alexandrian, 93 ; pro- 
cess of, 94; result of, 95; impossibility of stopping short, 
95 ; not to be restricted by a majority of voices, 96; conse- 
quences of, 97 ; commonly avowed, 98 ; necessity of guard- 
ing against, 98; corruptions caused by, 99 ; temptations to, 
99 ; why a sin, 102 ; false, 103 ; necessarily connected with 
Pantheism, 104; implies falsehoods, 107; and forgery, 
107; want of proper zeal for truth, 108; despises trifles, 
109; connected with an over-estimate of human intellect, 
115 ; cannot succeed in its object, 115. 

Testimony, necessity of, 8, 9, 10; appointed by God, 12; rules 
for, 13 ; folly of superseding, 61 ; foundation of belief in 
the Church, 250; of three witnesses, 381. 

Theology, root of knowledge, 309 ; queen of sciences, 315:; ba- 
sis of religion, 310 ; natural to be studied from revelation, 
313 ; at present imperfect, 315 ; physical science based on, 
317 ; recognised as of primary importance by God, 329. 

Trifles, nothing such, 109 ; value of, 109; contempt for, a sin, 
113. 

Trinity in the human mind, 256 ; analogy of in heathen philo- 
sophy, 297 ; Plato's view of, 320. 

Truth, ambiguity of the word, and consequent danger, 65; in 
one sense of, accordance with the nature of God, 65 ; in 
another sense accordance with the fancy of man, 65 ; every 
one professes to follow it, 64 ; lies in apparent incon- 
sistencies, 68, 84; in plurality in unity, 255. 

Understanding distinct from reason, 288 ; logical, 288 ; not 
the primary faculty of man, 288 ; not necessary to belief, 
must be preceded by faith, 299. 

Unity in plurality the character of truth, 85; of generations, 
217 ; object of desire,220 ; identical with the good, 220; 
so acknowledged by ancients, 220 ; nature of, 221 ; desire 
of excited by previous plurality, 223 ; two heads of, 224 ; 
essence of beauty and goodness, 251 ; when attained, man's 
happiness vanishes, 252 ; its application to astronomy, 
318; in plurality, definition of goodness, 374. 



422 INDEX. 

Utilitarians recognise an external standard, 199. 

Vice essentially a servitude, 162. 

Virtue, obedience to law, 198 ; how produced by circumstan- 
ces, 278; Christian definition of, 381 ; practical rules for, 
381 ; essentially connected with pleasure, 406. 

Vow of belief in baptism, 329 ; its meaning, 320; of obedience 
335. 

Why, different senses of, 368. 

Will, necessary to virtue, 335 ; given by God, 336 ; given se- 
cretly, 336 ; not necessary to make an action bad, 337 ; 
difference in, 337 ; want of it criminal, 338 

Young men, ignorance of, 7. 




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